


ripples in a brook, open book

by nntkiwff



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Modern AU, Past Substance Abuse, Richie Tozier: king of hiding things from himself, barista richie/student eddie, coffee shop AU, group chat fic but not in every chapter but yeah, i'll be honest this is just a love letter to the micro roastery where i work. enjoy, midtwenties Losers, no clown. just regular small town trauma. also georgie never died but he's not in the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nntkiwff/pseuds/nntkiwff
Summary: After a brief respite in the morning, the wind had picked up again an hour or so ago. Richie has been waiting to see if the sandwich board outside would blow over or not -- the most entertaining part of his day so far, until Eddie showed up.“You just missed Kennedy,” Richie says. “They had the Toper on all morning, so it's nice and toasty in here.”He leans over the counter and presses the back of his fingers to Eddie’s rosy pink cheek, expecting him to pull away, possibly to swat at him like when they were kids. Instead Eddie accepts the touch, humming a little.“Toasty,” he confirms, moving Richie’s hand to his other cheek for a moment before dropping it.Richie pulls back and picks up the stamp again, just to keep it moving. In his stomach there is a familiar swirling sensation which passes through resolutely ignored.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 29
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

_Maybe, you may love me too,  
_

_oh, my darling, if you do_

_why haven't you told me?_

**i.**

“Your friend is here.”

Richie looks up from the sandwich bags that he’s been stamping and sees Eddie through the front door, kicking snow off his shoes outside. A grin spreads over his face and he watches as Eddie pushes into the cafe, already pulling off his mittens, his bag shouldered. Even though he uses _Frontier_ to study pretty often, Richie still feels a warm thrill spread through his chest knowing that Eddie has sought him out. 

“Get a load of this guy!” Richie calls, obnoxiously loud in the silent cafe. Pat raises her eyebrows at him from the cash, and Eddie looks up, surprised. After a moment his expression shifts into a solidly exasperated look, but Richie can see a smile underneath it. 

The place is empty except for one regular, a student Richie knows well enough, sitting at his favourite table in the far corner. He glances up from his laptop and sketches when Richie’s holler rings through the cafe, smiling in Eddie’s direction. Eddie smiles back, polite, as he sheds his jacket and bag. His hair is damp and flecked with snow, and he's wearing one of his thickest sweaters. It’s a sweater he’s owned since Derry, blue and huge. Richie knows that it used to belong to his father. 

Eddie greets Pat before joining Richie at the back bar. 

“Busy day?” He says, nodding at the bags. 

“Oh yeah, very important stuff going on here. We have an order for four hundred empty sandwich bags due in one hour, I really don’t think I’ll have time to socialize with you at all today.” 

He belies his words by abandoning the task immediately to lean against the counter and grin more at Eddie, who smile back. There is a single stool at the end of the bar, onto which he hops up and settles. 

“Probably the weather,” he says, nodding to the emptiness of the cafe. “It’s still fucking miserable out there.”

It's been snowing for almost a week straight, turning the New York streets into laneways of slush which freeze into ice overnight then turn to slush again each afternoon. Richie and the other baristas at _Frontier Coffee Roasters_ have been mopping more or less every two hours since the initial blizzard, and yet the floor is still mercilessly covered in salt. It’s ugly weather for the first week of November, cold and blustering in the way that drives people straight indoors and keeps them there throughout their lunch breaks, when they might otherwise patron a coffee shop. 

After a brief respite in the morning, the wind had picked up again an hour or so ago. Richie has been waiting to see if the sandwich board outside would blow over or not - the most entertaining part of his day so far, until Eddie showed up. 

“You just missed Kennedy,” Richie says, about the quiet Australian who roasts the coffee beans that his boss, Trevor, sources. They’re one of Eddie’s favourite people, because Eddie likes listening to their accent. “They had the Toper on all day, so it's nice and toasty in here.”

He leans over the counter and presses the back of his fingers to Eddie’s rosy pink cheek, expecting him to pull away, possibly to swat at him like when they were kids. Instead Eddie accepts the touch, humming a little. 

“Toasty,” he confirms, moving Richie’s hand to his other cheek for a moment before dropping it. 

Richie pulls back and picks up the stamp again, just to keep it moving. In his stomach there is a familiar swirling sensation which passes through resolutely ignored.

“You come to study?” He asks, stamping another bag and then flicking it away.

“Not really.” Eddie begins shuffling Richie’s wild piles of bags into orderly stacks, lining them up along the edge of the counter. “I might do some reading, though. I just figured it was easier to come meet you here and go to Bev’s together, rather than go all the way home and come back when you finish.”

Richie remembers only as Eddie tells him - they had agreed to help Beverly unpack boxes in her new apartment. A commitment made in Richie's kitchen two nights ago, when Bev had excitedly announced that she would officially no longer be crashing on he and Stan’s couch. A commitment made under the influence of substantive quantities of cannabis, like most of the commitments he and Bev made to one another. 

Her aunt had finally packed up and moved out of the city that summer, after threatening it for years. Aunt Lena, or just Lena, as she was known to most of the Losers, had retired to a nice house upstate. She’d packed up and left the city for good in mid July, leaving Beverly behind to apartment hunt through the summer and fall, because Beverly had no intention of ever living outside the metropolitan area ever again. After much painstaking searching, she had finally secured a place on the cheap in late October, and she’d finally moved in yesterday when her aunt had driven her all her boxes down.

“Right,” Richie says, as though he hadn’t completely forgotten. “Well, dope. Nice to see you, buddy. You want coffee?”

“Tea today, I think,” Eddie says, vague as always. He never seems to know what he wants from the _Frontier_ menu, never having been much of a coffee drinker before Richie started working in the industry. Left to his own devices, Eddie wakes up in the morning with a glass of _water_ , something Richie has always found profoundly weird.

He sets about mixing a special blend of cinnamon rooibos tea with ginger spice, then stirs a tablespoon of honey, and adds a little lemon to ward off the cold. Eddie smiles at him as he sets it down with a little flourish and a bad French Voice. 

“Voila, monsieur, one tea beverage.”

“Thanks, Rich.”

While his tea cools, Eddie moves along the bar to engage Pat in the routine struggle of _hey-don’t-worry-about-it; no-I-insist_ until she shoos him vehemently away with the novel in her hand. Still trying to argue, Eddie drops four dollars in the tip cup, and at the sound of money hitting the ceramic bowl, Richie’s head snaps up from the sandwich bags once more. He makes a displeased sound, waving an aggrieved hand that communicates what he’s told Eddie a thousand times - No Tipping!

“She won’t take my money! I’m just paying you for your services!” Eddie protests, pulling his sweater sleeves over his hands as he waves them defensively. 

“What am I, a cheap whore? Just sit down and drink your tea!”

Across the room Ben the Regular laughs behind his hand, and Richie tips him a wink in response. Pat glances between Eddie and Richie, looking for a second like she’s going to interject on the payment issue. Then she seems to think better of it and picks up her book again instead.

Eddie doesn’t end up getting much reading done, himself. He hangs around the bar, swivelling lightly on the stool and shooting the shit with Richie, completely ignoring his bag full of schoolwork. Richie, enjoying his company but wary of being perceived as slacking off due to his presence, stamps cups to the point of excess, then fills extra bags of coffee beans for retail, and then makes vanilla syrup even though they don’t really _need_ any, all while they rip apart the most recent episode of Bill’s new show. He’s about to start an equally unnecessary batch of basil pesto before Pat tells him to go home. 

“I’ll be fine,” she says. “It’s not gonna pick up today, not with the weather like this.”

It’s an hour still before Richie is technically done, which he points out, but Pat insists that he and Eddie have an energy that is unsuitable for such a miserable afternoon, and that it’s impeding her ability to read _Dracula_ in peace.

“Maybe if you chose to read something a little more _stimulating_ , you wouldn’t find it so hard to focus!” Richie tuts as he gathers his coat and gloves, sweater and bag from under the counter. 

Eddie gives him a look. “Are you implying that _Dracula_ isn’t interesting?”

“Are you implying that it _is?_ ”

“It’s a classic!”

“Eds, have you even read _Dracula_?”

Eddie blushes, the way he always does when Richie catches him out on one of his unfoundedly vehement opinions. “No, but I’ve seen the movie!”

Richie exaggerates an eye role as he shoves his sweater into his bag. “Okay, so you love Winona Ryder. Does that make gothic literature interesting?”

“Okay then, what would _you_ say is a _stimulating_ genre?”

“Does your mom’s diary count?” Richie asks, shouldering his bag and circling around to the civilians side of the bar as Eddie makes a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh. 

“Wow, funny, Richie, really funny.”

“I mean, I certainly found it _stimulating_ ,” he wiggles his hips and Eddie pushes him back with a hand to the chest, making a disgusted face. 

“You know I really thought you had grown out of _your mom_ jokes.”

“Never, Eddie, my dear,” Richie says, despite the fact that he actually has, for the most part. When Richie turns his attention to bidding Pat farewell, she is trying to hide the fact that she is grinning.

“See you Tuesday?”

“Bright and early,” she says, then snaps her fingers twice and points at him before he can turn away. “Oh! I also wanted to ask if you were open to giving me your shift on Sunday.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, paused with the second glove halfway on, waiting for the other shoe - the trade. A reason. Pat offers none. 

“Like, you just want the shift?” He asks, to confirm.

“Yeah,” she shrugs. “I just need some extra hours this week.”

“Okay, sure,” Richie says. The concept of unexpected time off makes him feel like doing a little two-step. “I’m off Monday, so it’ll be like a real weekend! Imagine. Fantastic idea.”

Pat looks satisfied. “Cool,” she says. “Thanks, Richie.”

“No, thank _you,_ Miss Blum!”

Once Eddie is bundled up, bag secure on his back, they make their exit. Richie gives Ben a short wave as they step out into the cold. Ben smiles and waves back.

Beverly’s new place is quite close to _Frontier_ , sitting about halfway down the block - more or less right in between the cafe and Stan and Richie’s place. Her aunt's apartment had been across the city, a hellish commute across three separate subway lines which she had to endure each time she wanted to spend time with either Stan or Richie, who she spends most of her time with, and Richie expects that she picked this neighbourhood not just for its affordability. 

“So, you’re off on Sunday now?” Eddie asks as they set off, huddled together instinctively to navigate the icy sidewalk. 

“Yessssssssssssss,” Richie says, drawing out the _s_ so that his breath swirls out into the cold air. 

“Do you want to go see the new Ari Aster movie? It comes out this weekend.”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Richie says, bouncing on his feet a little. "Your Monday class isn’t until the afternoon, right? Let’s go to a bar or something after. Oh my god, it’s been so long since I’ve gotten drunk. You should stay over! We’ll make a night of it.”

Eddie cuts a glance sideways, meeting Richie’s eye for only the briefest moment before he buries his face in the collar of his ridiculously poofy jacket. Richie suspects that he is remembering _why_ Richie doesn’t drink much, why Richie _couldn’t_ drink, for months, after he came back from L.A. Richie bumps his elbow with his own, dislodging him from this train of thought. 

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie’s voice is muffled behind the fabric of his jacket. “Um, we should get tickets before it sells out. It’s opening weekend.”

“On it, boss,” Richie says His gloves have the phone-positive fingertips on the thumbs, but it’s still a struggle to navigate the theatre’s box office site. When they turn onto Bev’s street, he opens up his texts instead. 

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, Micycle, Rich Bitch, spaghetti, Staniel**

**2:02 p.m, Rich Bitch:** BEV we r here let us im 

**2:03 p.m, Big Bev:** okiee

 **2:05 p.m, Big Bill:** Richie why in the gc

 **2:15 p.m, Rich Bitch:** so you know we are at Bevs? and we need her to let us in?

 **2:16 p.m, Micycle:** why would we, in Los Angeles, need to know that?

 **2:17 p.m, Rich Bitch:** Mike! don’t u want to know that we are safe in this blizzard-like weather?

 **2:22 p.m, Micycle:** Weather? 

**2:22 p.m, Micycle:** I don’t even know her 

**2:25 p.m, Rich Bitch:** you’re from florida

 **2:30 p.m, Micycle:** and?

 **2:31 p.m, Rich Bitch:** HURRICANES

 **2:48 p.m, Big Bill:** Bev send pics of ur new apartment

**2:51 p.m, Big Bev: *5 attachments***

**2:56 p.m, Staniel:** Are you going to let those goblins live on the floor permanently?

 **2:59 p.m, Big Bev:** they are free to a good home

 **3:03 p.m, spaghetti:** full offense. I have done nothing but be helpful and generous with my time

 **3:03 p.m, spaghetti:** also Richie ffs stop changing my name to spaghetti

**‘spaghetti’ changed their name to ‘eds’**

**3:04 p.m, Rich Bitch:** no

**‘Rich Bitch’ changed ‘eds’ to ‘spaghetti’**

**3:05 p.m, spaghetti:** youre not funny

 **3:06 p.m, Big Bev:** then why did you laugh?

 **3:06 p.m, Rich Bitch:** ur mom thinks I’m funny

 **3:07 p.m, Micycle:** fact check???? 

**3:07 p.m, spaghetti:** NO

 **3:09 p.m, Staniel:** Eddie’s mom hates us all.

 **3:10 p.m, Big Bill:** especially Richie, though

 **3:10 p.m, Rich Bitch:** Bill go to your Room

 **3:12 p.m, Big Bill:** Okay, I’m in my room and Eddie’s mom still hates you

 **3:13 p.m, Rich Bitch:** :-( 

**‘spaghetti’ changed ‘Rich Bitch’ to ‘dipshit’**

 **3:13 p.m, dipshit:** :-((

 **3:19 p.m, Big Bev:** they’re wrestling for Eddie’s phone

 **3:19 p.m, Big Bev:** why would I invite them to organize my apartment? Stan, can you please come help me

 **3:20 p.m, Staniel:** I have to finish my laundry before they become my problem again

 **3:20 p.m, Staniel:** I can come tomorrow after work, though, if you need. 

**3:22 p.m, Big Bev:** Please, I require the power of your compulsive tidiness. I have way more shit than I thought I did.

 **3:25 p.m, Staniel:** Sure thing. 

The place is… small. Bev lets them in with a flourish and gives them a “tour” by way of standing in the middle of the room and throwing her arms out. Still, it’s hers, and Richie is thrilled by it, one tiny cramped little room with a tiled kitchen space through a set of shuttered doors in one corner. There’s a table with four chairs tucked off over there, an old couch she’d salvaged across from it, a brand new bed against the wall, and a fuck-load of boxes. They set about fulfilling the purpose of their visit, but it turns out that without anywhere to put things _away_ they can only effectively empty the boxes in the the kitchen and bathroom, which takes no time at all. Eddie unpacks Beverly’s bedding and makes her bed with impeccable deftness, hospital corners and a crisply laid duvet. Richie is positive that it is as orderly as Bev’s bed is ever going to look. 

An hour or so after they run out of productive things to do, Richie is lying on the floor with his long legs stretched out beneath the table, having relegated himself there for the sake of the crispness of the duvet. He has his head tipped so he can see Eddie and Beverly on the couch, tucked into opposite corners; Bev’s attention is on her phone and Eddie is talking a mile a minute into the air about one of his T.A’s, one with whom he has deep-seeded issues. It seems that he’s been trying to ice Eddie out of their _group discussions_ or whatever the fuck tutorials are for - a gripe that Richie has been listening to for the length of the semester, and is only half paying attention to, now.

“...but how’s it _my_ responsibility to make sure he doesn’t just fucking ignore me all class? It’s impossible. It’s going to affect my grade! Like half the time he doesn’t even _touch_ on the points I bring up.”

“Maybe he finds you overwhelming,” Bev suggests, without lifting her head. Richie snorts as Eddie kicks out at her leg dramatically.

“Then he should get a new fucking job! I’m hardly the most annoying grad student he’ll ever have to deal with! If he’s not prepared to handle the students he’s in the wrong field.”

Richie makes a doubtful sound and pulls a face. “You’re the most annoying grad student that _I_ have to deal with,” he says.

Eddie makes a face back at him. “I’m the only grad student you deal with.”

“Not true. Ben from work is a grad student.”

“He doesn’t count!”

"What? Why not? Ben’s great! What’s wrong with Ben?"

"I - nothing is wrong with Ben, I think Ben is fine. But he's not your friend. He's way too put together to be your friend, have you seen his fucking peacoat? He carries a Prada portfolio case, for fucks sake!"

“Okay, it’s gay that you know the brand of his bag. Have you even actually formally met him? Why do you know that?”

“It’s a nice bag!”

“That’s gay, Eds.”

“You’re gay, man, fuck you. At least I don’t cry at car commercials.”

“Touche. Anyways, it doesn't matter if he’s my _friend_ or not, which he is. I still _deal_ with him on almost a daily basis, and he’s a grad student, and he’s top-notch in terms of loveliness, not annoying at all. Therefore _you_ take the title of most annoying grad student, and my point stands.”

Eddie scoffs, loudly, and locks eyes with Richie as he raises his eyebrows in silent challenge. It shouldn’t be all it takes, but for some reason it is. Richie breaks almost immediately. He grins, unable to keep up the charade that he finds Eddie genuinely irritating at all, rolling his eyes just to save face.

“Okay, alright, Spaghetti, relax, I think you’re just as lovely as the fine sir Benjamin, with or without the Gucci bag. Does that make you happy?”

He expects a jab back, something quick, pointed at his ego and aimed to make him laugh; but Eddie says nothing. Then he smiles a particularly dulcet smile.

“It’s Prada, but yes. Thank you.”

Richie opens his mouth, then closes it again, his mind caught in the weeds, thinking _how do I turn that into a joke? Joke? Hmm..._ When nothing occurs to him for another long moment Beverly finally looks up from her phone, glancing first at Eddie and then at Richie, who feels himself immediately begin to go red. 

“Who is Ben?”

"A regular at _Frontier,_ " Richie says. "He's going to be an architect. He carries a Prada bag."

“Yeah, I gathered,” Beverly says dryly. “I’m hungry. Do you guys want pizza or Thai?”

“Pizza,” Richie says, as Eddie says “Thai.” 

Beverly sighs. “Chinese it is, then.” 

Richie picks up his legs and rests his feet on one of the chairs tucked under the table, rearranging himself so that he is folded in a sitting position with his back to the floor. It’s something to do to while he avoids looking at Eddie.

On the table, Eddie’s phone makes a sound like a wind chime at the same time that Richie’s buzzes on his chest. A moment later all the phones go off again twice in quick succession, and Beverly snorts. Richie picks up his phone and checks the notification.

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

**3:25 p.m, Staniel:** Sure thing.

 **7:34 p.m, Micycle:** why especially Richie though 

**7:35 p.m, Staniel:** He made Eddie gay

 **7:35 p.m, Big Bill:** he never showered as a kid

“Oh, come on,” Richie mutters fiercely, glaring in Bev’s direction as she continues to snicker. It’s been years since they’ve rehashed this particular argument, and he knows that only means Eddie has pent-up rage waiting to be let loose. He cannot think of a worse way to spend the next 50 minutes. 

“What?” Eddie looks between the two of them, the only one without his phone in his hand. “What’s funny?”

Richie groans, loud and sustained but dispassionate, as Bev hands Eddie her phone rather than explain. Richie averts his gaze to the ceiling to avoid seeing the angry flush that creeps up Eddie’s neck as he begins typing on Bev’s phone. 

“Hey,” Bev snatches it back. “Get your own.”

Eddie tries to grab it back from her, fails, then throws himself off the couch and stalks over to the table - bringing himself out of Richie’s peripherals and into his direct line of sight. Richie very resolutely ignores the stifling feeling trying to claw its way out of his chest. 

“Oh, fuck his stupid face,” Eddie mutters as he begins tapping furiously at his phone.

 _Fuck you, Stan,_ Richie thinks. Then he picks up his phone and types it into the group chat, locking his screen again before he has to see whatever Eddie is about to send. 

The joke is that the joke is ten years old, and it never fails to send Eddie into a rage. 

The first time was in sophomore year, when Eddie had told them, Bill and Stan and Richie, out loud, that he was as gay. ‘As gay as the day is long’, he’d said, and Richie had not been able to keep from laughing hysterically, despite the death glare. 

The thing was, Eddie had had the unfortunate and questionable timing of revealing his _secret_ only a few months after the entire football team spotted Richie kissing Eddie Corcoran behind the school. In the eyes of their peers, the gay train had already left the station, and Eddie Kaspbrak was merely hitching a ride. Tonnes of speculation had followed. 

After The Losers had all assured Eddie that of course they didn’t care, duh, and they loved him all the same, duh, Stan had turned a funny look on Eddie and said outright that his mom would blame Richie if she ever found out, and did he know that? Eddie had turned a shade of red that Richie had never seen him turn before, and wouldn’t speak to Stan for an hour and a half - a record of sorts - then he burst into an unholy explosion of full offense taken.

The joke is that Stan was completely right, as they had collectively discovered two years later, after Sonia Kaspbrak’s cousin caught _Eddie_ fooling around with Eddie Corcoran behind the Dairy Queen. 

It had been one of the most awkward conversations Richie had ever had to have with Eddie, being told that they couldn’t hang out at the Kaspbrak house anymore because Eddie’s mom thought that the gay had somehow spread from one of them to the other, two guesses who was responsible; awkward not only because it was incredibly homophobic, but also because Richie and Eddie had never shared their gayness in any way, and had gone to lengths to avoid discussing the topic at all. 

So the ‘joke’ rubs Richie the wrong way, too. 

Not nearly as much as it bothers Eddie, but it definitely _bothers_ him, has put his stomach an anxious twist every single time including the first. The implication that homosexuality is somehow _catching_ makes him unvariably annoyed. Context made it abundantly clear to anyone that Richie had _not_ made Eddie gay. Eddie was, and had always been, gay all on his own. Anyone with a single braincell knows perfectly well that two gay people are capable of being friends without being anything more, go watch a fucking episode of _Glee_ or something, so Richie resents the inferences that Mike is now going to draw. As well as the tantrum that Eddie is now about to throw. 

Thankfully he seems to be keeping his rage directed towards the group chat. He drops heavily into one of the chairs not occupied by Richie’s legs, huffing in aggravation, and Richie meets Bev’s eye across the room. There is something speculative in her gaze as she looks back, and he gets the eerie feeling that she is peeking behind the curtains of his mind in that weird way that she has of doing. He averts his eyes to the ceiling once more while his phone buzzes on his chest, searching for a change of subject. 

“Do you wanna see a movie on Sunday, Bev?” He asks the ceiling. “New Ari Aster joint.”

Eddie stops typing for a moment, eyes snapping up to Richie. Richie ignores his narrowed gaze, tilting his head to peek at Beverly. She’s looking at her phone. When she glances up at him the speculative look has passed, and is replaced with intrigue.

“I’m down. Are you getting tickets?”

“Sure, but you owe me.”

Richie pulls up the theatre’s website once more and restarts his ticket purchase since the last one timed out. He adds a third ticket for Bev to the cart and goes through the digital checkout, pausing before purchasing as he briefly thinks of Stan. Then his phone vibrates again and he again decides _fuck Stan_ , who in any case doesn’t like scary movies. Which is kind of Ari Aster's whole bag. There's bound to be at least one skull crushed. 

Richie ignores the constant group chat notifications until he’s secured three seats in the five p.m viewing, and can ignore them no longer.

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

**8:34 p.m, Micycle:** why especially Richie though 

**8:35 p.m, Staniel:** He made Eddie gay

 **8:35 p.m, Big Bill:** he never showered as a kid

 **8:37 p.m, dipshit:** fuck you stan

 **8:37 p.m, spaghetti:** how many FUCKING times

 **8:37 p.m, spaghetti:** do I have to tell you

 **8:37 p.m, spaghetti:** to FUCK OFF

 **8:38 p.m, Micycle:** oh no

 **8:38 p.m, Micycle:** sorry???

 **8:38 p.m, spaghetti:** not you mike youre fine 

**8:38 p.m, spaghetti:** STANLEY EAT SHIT FOR BREAKFAST

 **8:38 p.m, spaghetti:** It has literally NEVER been funny and it’s not funny now

 **8:38 p.m, spaghetti:** It’s fucking homophobic and you’re a twat

 **8:39 p.m, Staniel:** What? How am I homophobic? All of my friends are gay

 **8:39 p.m, spaghetti:** OHH MY GOD DON’T 

**8:39 p.m, spaghetti:** DON’T act DUMB I WILL KILL YOU

 **8:39 p.m, spaghetti:** Richie being gay has literally nothing to do with me being gay

 **8:39 p.m, spaghetti:** that’s not how homosexuality works and you KNOW THIS and I know you know because I have had to listen to this joke TOO MANY TIMES

 **8:40 p.m, Staniel:** Yes, but your mom thought it was all Richie’s fault and that’s why she hates him most of all.

 **8:40 p.m, Staniel:** I was simply answering a question, Eddie!

 **8:40 p.m, Big Bev:** his mom thought that you could get AIDS from a papercut too tho, so 

**8:40 p.m, spaghetti:** fuck yourself with a lawn mower stanley

 **8:40 p.m, Big Bev:** grain of salt.

 **8:40 p.m, spaghetti:** ENOUGH 

**8:41 p.m, Big Bill:** she thought our bike seats were going to give us testicular cancer remember

 **8:41 p.m, spaghetti:** ENOUGH ENOUGH

 **8:41 p.m, spaghetti:** NO MORE ABOUT MY MOM

 **8:41 p.m, Staniel:** Damn. Normally that would be Richie’s cue. 

**8:41 p.m, spaghetti:** JUST STOP TALKING STANLEY YOU’RE ON TIME OUT FOR MAKING ME MAD NOW BYE

 **8:42 p.m, Big Bill:** Bev are they still at your house? Is Eddie frothing at the mouth

 **8:42 p.m, Big Bev:** Scowling, deeply. Rich is dead-eyed on the floor. 

**8:42 p.m, Big Bev:** Well done, Stan, you broke them. My night is ruined. 

**8:43 p.m, Big Bill:** this is what Stan wanted

 **8:43 p.m, Micycle:** I feel that I am Missing Something

 **8:43 p.m, Big Bill:** not much. Richie was out before Eddie. Stan lives and dies by this joke. Everyone else suffers.

 **8:44 p.m, Staniel:** One hundred thousand notifications is not what I wanted, please. 

**8:44 p.m, Big Bill:** You knew what you were doing Stan

 **8:44 p.m, Big Bill:** You should at least own it if you’re going to subject us to this

 **8:45 p.m, dipshit:** _@Micycle_ I showered a normal amount as a kid

 **8:45 p.m, Big Bill:** he didn’t

 **8:45 p.m, Staniel:** He did not

 **8:45 p.m, spaghetti:** he really didn’t

 **8:46 p.m, dipshit:** Eddie we're supposed to be on the same side 

**8:46 p.m, Staniel:** Ha

 **8:46 p.m, spaghetti:** stanley FUCK OFF you are still banished from the chat 

**8:46 p.m, dipshit:** do you forget i have keys to your home?

 **8:47 p.m, spaghetti:** he showers a normal amount now, mike

 **8:48 p.m, Staniel:** Our Home <3

 **8:49 p.m, Mycicle:** good to know Eddie, thanks

 **8:49 p.m, dipshit:** Stanley don’t think being coy makes you any less murdered

 **8:52 p.m, Big Bill:** man I miss you guys

 **8:55 p.m, dipshit:** logging off

They end up staying the night at Bev’s. Richie is too lazy to get up and leave once their third joint is smoked, knowing that he'll be that much closer to work in the morning and not particularly wanting to head home to make good on his threat of murdering Stan. 

Three separate times Eddie claims he's going to leave and then winds up complaining about the commute back to his own apartment for twenty minutes instead. He’s lived on the second floor of a house by the NYU campus since the July after highschool, when he moved out of his mother's house and into the city. Besides Beverly, he has lived in New York for the longest, adapting totally and completely in the years he’s been there. He'd been in his house for three years already when Stan had finished his accounting degree and said _fuck it_ to Georgia and his father's wishes and moved to New York to be close to his friends once more, and to pursue his true passion: Ornithology at Cornell. 

Eddie’s friends all know that he’s attached to his house, his room, his space; the first place he’s ever lived without the looming presence of his mother, so they try not to begrudge him living on the opposite end of the city on the absolute worst subway line - but the fourth time he brings up his commute, Beverly threatens to kick his ass. He decides to stay after that. 

Richie starts crashing embarrassingly close to 10 p.m, his eyes drifting shut for longer and longer as he continues to lay splayed out on the floor, until he's startled awake and Bev is standing over him grinning. Giving in to his ceaseless yawns shortly afterwards he claims sharing rights to her bed, explaining that there is absolutely no way he’s going to be able to fit all six foot four of himself on the couch. Eddie only barely puts up a fight, having lived most of his life as the middle-seat-sitter and love-seat-sleeper. Richie’s out cold again before Beverly even gets into the bed. 

When his alarm rings at 5:30 a.m the next morning, he spends one second hating all of existence before remembering that Bev and Eddie are sleeping in the same room as him. He shuts it off as quickly as possible but Bev stirs anyways, pulling a pillow over her head and making a funny, sleep-filled sound. Doing his best not to disturb her further, Richie eases himself up out of bed and pads into her small and incredibly beige bathroom to get ready, sending a picture of himself obviously _post shower_ into the group chat, just nude enough to make a point.

Wearing his jeans from the day before, he slips back into the main room shirtless to quietly pick through the piles of Bev’s clothes on the floor until he finds a t-shirt that will fit him, discovering one that he’s pretty sure was actually his at some point, based on the fact that Beverly has never really liked MGMT enough to own their merchandise, but he also can’t remember owning it at any point in time. It's debatable whether she's ever listened to them besides from the mixes he's played, so he doesn't feel bad stealing it.

Eddie’s still asleep in the middle of the room. He’s curled into himself a little bit to fit on the length of the couch, and his face is slack and dopey where it is pressed into the cushions. In the dark quiet of the early morning, Richie eats a bowl of cereal and watches the rise and fall of Eddie's breathing, contemplating the way his curly hair is sticking out every which way. After he finishes he puts his bowl in the sink and crosses the room, where kneels down in front of the couch and puts his palm over Eddie’s shoulder. 

“Hey, Eds.” 

Eddie is warm even through the blanket covering him. He stirs a little, his brow creasing in confusion as Richie jostles him again.

“ _Hmmnng_? Rich?”

“Yeah, buddy, hey. Sorry to wake you. Go sleep in the bed, I’m leaving.”

Eddie makes another sleepy sound, still blinking himself awake, and Richie feels fondness bloom in his heart. When Eddie’s eyes finally focus, Richie smiles and moves his hand from Eddie's shoulder to his bicep, tugging him gently upwards. Eddie makes a scrunched, grumpy face. “What? Where’re we going?”

“I’m going to work, you’re going to Beverly’s bed. Up you go, come on.” 

Still mostly unconscious, Eddie lets Richie guide him to his feet, clutching the blanket around himself like a cape. Once upright he blinks a few more times and peers up with big bleary eyes at Richie. “You’re leaving?” 

“Yeah.” Richie drops his hand. His palm is still warm. “Bed’s all yours.”

Eddie closes his eyes and doesn’t move. Then he leans forward and presses his forehead against Richie’s collarbone, a gentle pressure which Richie barely processes before he’s pulling back again and shuffling across the wooden floor to Beverly’s bed. “Okay, bye.”

Richie watches him collapse on top of the covers, hears Beverly’s surprised yelp, and lets himself out of the apartment. His phone vibrates as he hits the street.

 **6:02 a.m, stan the man:** Are u up

 **6:02 a.m, rich:** yep

The wind is back in full force this morning, whipping across Richie’s cheeks with a brutal, icy sting that blows right through his scarf. It’s at least an hour still until sunrise, and the streets are eerily empty, quiet except for the whistling of the wind through the buildings. Richie plugs his headphones in but keeps the music off, trying to keep the wind from blowing into his ear canals and giving him an earache. 

The walk is strangely lonely without Stan by his side. They’ve walked together nearly every Saturday and Sunday morning since Richie had scored him a part-time gig at _Frontier_ a year ago: a small favour paid in exchange for the massive favour of Stan’s roommate-ship, although Richie knows Stan has never seen it that way.

Shortly before Richie had finally decided to leave California, Stan’s roommate had abruptly decided that the lease wasn’t working out for him. Stan had been quick to offer Richie the empty room, and the fact that Richie had had no job, no prospects, and had only just barely made it out of L.A alive seemed hardly to matter to him - even when Richie highlighted these shortcomings. 

The apartment was much nicer than anything Richie would have been able to find on his own in New York; a full first floor unit with two decent bedrooms and a kitchen and a common room, in a cheap neighbourhood, with only a moderate roach infestation. The offering was a mercy, plain and simple. A reminder that though Stan’s love could occasionally be barbed, there was nothing he wouldn't do for any of the Losers. 

When he’d quit his retail job at a soap store a few months later, and mentioned that he needed something new on the weekends, Richie had put in a good word with Trevor.

 **6:03 a.m, rich:** i'm just leaving bev's 

**6:05 a.m, stan the man:** Is so cold.

They're a block away from the cafe when he catches sight of Stan, recognizing his deep green coat and leather bag up ahead only after walking behind him for five minutes.

"Stanley!" 

Stan stops so short he slips on the icy sidewalk, shooting daggers at Richie over his shoulder once he regains his balance. Despite this, Richie is happy to see him. 

"Richard," Stan says, voice hoarse with the early hour. 

Richie nudges their elbows together as he catches up and they continue walking on in comfortable silence. The sidewalk is filled with fresh snow and slush, and Richie’s feet are more or less frozen by the time they unlock the door and step into the darkened interior of _Frontier_.

They set up the cafe in continued silence, falling into a well-established routine. Richie goes for the aux cord first thing, putting on an early morning playlist filled with a range from Golden Age Coldplay to Sam Cooke, all songs he knows Sleepy Stan will enjoy, then sets about doing the same things he's done every Saturday morning for the last seven months. Pastries, out. Chairs, down. Scones, in the oven for two cycles of 12 minutes. He can do it without even thinking, at this point, and Stan does his half of the workload in the same mindless way. They’ve worked the entire thing into a calculated 30 minutes, reminiscent of how they used to divide history projects or chores to save time when they were kids. 

When the front door is unlocked and the espresso is dialled in, they sit at the end of the bar with their coffees and wait for the poor souls who are destined to be in a coffee shop on a miserable Saturday morning. 

"How's Bev's place?" Stan asks halfway through his coffee, when his brain has come online. 

"Small," Richie tells him. "Fourth floor walk-up."

"Very New York." 

Richie remembers, belatedly, Stan’s little performance in the group chat the night before. He scowls, kicking out at Stan’s shoe and making an aggrieved sound. Stan's feigned ignorance would be convincing, perhaps, without a decades worth of context. 

"What was that for?"

"You know what it’s for, and you know you’re not funny in the slightest. You should keep to the bird fuckery and let those of us with a funny bone do the humour. Especially when it comes to Eddie’s mom, man, leave it to the pros." 

It comes across perhaps slightly too earnest, what with the early morning of it all. As quick as running water, Stan's face grows serious. He sets his mug down on the counter and turns to peer at Richie thoughtfully. Richie regrets this immediately.

"Richie, you know… I -" 

They both look up at the sound of the door opening, a harried looking young person stepping in from the cold. Richie glares at Stan until he gets up to take the first order.

One harried customer turns into a slew of them, which they are informed shortly is because the subway four streets over has gone out of service, driving all the weekend commuters into the streets above. It's one of the busiest Saturday mornings since the summer, the foot traffic so heavy that Richie would go so far as to say it's out of control. They sink into a manic but manageable system, with Richie on the cash, handling the human interactions and pastries, and Stan moving through the drink orders like a well calibrated machine, their hands fully occupied for the better part of three hours. After lunch the subway resumes service and the steady flow of customers trickles off suddenly, leaving them to play catch up on an apocalyptic amount of dishes. Richie thinks to himself that the extra prep that had driven Pat crazy the day before had probably saved their asses, and he makes a mental note to tell her at some point.

By the time the next shift comes in they're about dead on their feet, and they slouch off to the office in the basement at the first opportunity to huddle over Trevor’s desk and devour some pastries. Richie feels like he's about to fall asleep on the stores old desktop.

"'M so happy I'm off tomorrow," he says, head propped on his hand. Stan looks over at him, face pressed in confusion.

"What? Since when?"

Richie grins, wickedly. "Pat picked up my shift," he says, drawing energy from the boast. 

Something strange passes over Stan's face, gone in an instant as he schools his features into what Richie privately thinks of as his Poker Face. The face he wears when he is concealing what's going on behind the eyes - about 90% of the time.

"Great," Stan says, infuriatingly. "I'm so happy I’ll be able to experience working with someone besides you, for once."

"Pat runs a pretty tight ship," Richie warns. "I'd be careful with her if I were you."

Stan purses his lips. Richie suspects he is tamping down a smile.

"Patty and I get along just fine." Richie is about to jump on _that_ , cause _Patty?_ but unfortunately Stan continues, turning to face Richie in All Seriousness for the second time that day. "Listen, Richie. I want to apologize for saying that in the group chat last night. I should be more sensitive about stuff like that, I’m sorry. It’s a bad joke. I guess I didn’t think about the way it might actually make you feel until afterwards.”

Richie gapes at him, at a complete loss for words for once in his life. Stan is a serious guy by nature, incredibly focused and perceptive, but he usually keeps things flippant and dry for the benefit of Richie’s emotional constipation. For him to offer such a sincere apology off the cuff is deeply uncomfortable. After a long time, Richie finds his tongue and tries for a lighthearted tone.

“It’s fine, Standelion, I don’t need an apology. Eddie just gets, like, deeply upset by it, and you know he’s a wild animal, so you know it’s really annoying. And you say it on purpose to rile him up, which, and I understand this is a pot kettle situation, is also annoying.”

When they were kids Richie had a theory that Stan could somehow read his mind, accurate as he was in his intuition of Richie’s thought patterns. He’d never truly felt that theory disproved. It’s for this reason that he focuses intently on ripping apart a day-old croissant in front of him, flakes of pastry crumbing up the desk. In his peripheral vision he can see Stan still turned towards him, his lips now set into frown, eyebrows raised. 

“So you’re saying it doesn’t bother _you_ at all?” 

“Not really,” Richie lies at his croissant, then shrugs. “I mean, it is homophobic to imply that being gay is contagious, but I know you only say it to make Eddie mad.”

Figuring it’s definitely more convincing if he makes eye contact Richie turns to face him, takes in his ultra-patented _Bullshit Detected_ facial expression, and feels something uncomfortable swirl in the depths of his stomach. 

“That’s not the implication I was really making, though, is it?” Stan says, dryly, after a moment. “I mean, that’s not the implication I’m apologizing for. Maybe I should be more clear. I’m sorry for implying in the group chat that you and Eddie have ever been involved. I can imagine that was uncomfortable for you, given -”

“I told you, it’s fine,” Richie says, even as he feels the heat rising into his cheeks. “Everyone knows Eddie and I are just friends, anyways. Two people can be gay in one friend group and not be _involved.”_

His hands are sweating a little bit, he realizes. Little pieces of croissant are sticking all over his fingers. He wipes his palms on his pants, frowning, and Stanley’s eyes track the movement. 

“I suppose they can,” he says. He waits for Richie to say something, and when he gets nothing in return his expression tilts further towards annoyance. He huffs, barely audible, and gives Richie one more second of resolute silence before he continues. “But more often I think the case is that two people from one friend group who are obviously compatible will eventually develop feelings for one another.”

“Both of us being gay doesn’t automatically make us _compatible,_ Stan, that’s exactly what’s so fucking annoying about your dumb joke. It was stupid when we were fifteen and it’s stupid now.”

Stanley rolls his eyes. “Yes, the joke is stupid. I have apologized. But I wouldn’t pair you off with any gay guy who walked past me, Richie, I was obviously talking about the wealth of personal experiences you and Eddie have shared -” 

“Yeah, Stan, cause we’re friends! We all have shared personal experience! _We_ have shared personal experience, and nobody is accusing me of trying to get in _your_ pants. But Eddie’s gay, so it _has_ to mean more? Are you a genuine homophobe, dude?”

“For _fucks_ -” Stanley starts angrily, then stops himself, abrupt like. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Richie watches him, vexxed, with only the barest hint of what’s going on inside his head. “Okay, Rich. If you don’t want to talk about this with me, that’s fine. I just wanted you to know… that I will try… to be more considerate about your feelings in the future.”

Stan speaks in such a chastised manner that Richie has a sudden recollection of a time in the seventh grade, when they had had such an explosive fight that Stanley completely snapped and shoved him right into the dirt. The school faculty had become involved and facilitated a mediated apology between the two of them, and Stan spoke with the same rigid wording then as he is now. 

Richie feels a twist of anger in his stomach as a thought occurs to him. 

"Did you… did Billy text you about this?" 

Stan frowns and looks away, his Poker Face ultimately worth fuck all, and Richie cries out and points a finger in his face.

“What the fuck, Stanley, you son of a bitch! What the hell!? If you guys are going to talk about me behind my back -”

“ _We weren’t_ -”

“- you could at least, at the very least, not pretend like you’re my fucking _dads_. What are you even doing right now?”

“I’m just trying to talk to you, Richie -”

“Do you guys ever talk about how funny I am in your little Richie-based parenting seminars? How clever or handsome? Are you proud of my macaroni pictures? Or is it strictly weird fuckin', like, jerk-off fantasy speculation about how I interact with Eddie and how convenient it would be if your gay friends boned?"

"Have you ever been funny, clever, or handsome?” Stanley deadpans with irritation. “I can't say I've noticed. And you don’t have a monopoly on _being gay,_ Richie, that isn’t what this is about.”

Richie pulls his glasses off and tosses them on the desk, pressing his forefinger and thumb into his eyes. “Stanley, I swear to Jewish God, I’m going to put my foot so far up your ass -”

"What I _have_ noticed is that you and Eddie are-"

" _GUYS._ ED AND BEV ARE HERE FOR YOU."

Trevor’s voice booms down the stairs to the basement and Stan and Richie both jump a mile out of their skin - when they settle, Richie crams his glasses back onto his face and swivels in his chair, taking Stan by the shoulders and fixing him with the most genuinely, earnestly Serious face he can manage.

“Fuck. Right. Off. Okay?”

Stan looks surprised at the force of his tone. He opens his mouth to respond and Richie cuts him off.

“No, Stan, for real. Fuck off. I don’t like your vibe. You’re way off base, and you’re _actually_ making me uncomfortable, now. Not even because of the Eddie bit, I just - don’t _discuss_ me behind my back. It bums me out.”

Stan closes his mouth and studies him, his expression vaguely pained. Richie holds his gaze, internally cursing Bill. After a battle of wills performed in silence, Stanley sighs and shrugs him off, gathering their dishes.

"I’m sorry for upsetting you," he says, in what Richie thinks is the most facetious tone of all time. He looks down at Richie as though deliberating something before he turns and heads towards the stairs. Richie sits in the basement for an extra minute, steeling himself for what he's about to walk into.

It’s hardly the first time someone has made speculations about his and Eddie’s relationship. It was bound to happen, given the fact that mostly everyone knew they were both gay and they hung out all the time. In high school, Bill had made a habit of making jokes about their constant bickering, often describing them as a ‘dysfunctional married couple’. Richie had never so much cared when Bill did it, cause at least there was an element of humour there, and it made Eddie swear at him which was ultimately entertaining enough to abate any discomfort Richie felt. And, unlike Stan - whose humour is bizarre and layered and occasionally unsettling in ways that Richie _usually_ finds hilarious - Bill rarely means anything more than exactly what he’s saying, and he’s never tried to make any _serious_ implications. Once the Losers had disbanded to separate states, he’d eased up on the teasing. Anyone who really knew them knows that it just isn’t… like that, between them. Richie and Eddie. 

In his life Richie has never been much of a stickler for the rules, in general, but his own personal doctrine is rigid. There are just a few solid directives that he has collected throughout his living years which have come to form the basis of his existence. Since he’d been off coke: don’t get tempted. Since he’d been in the back of a police cruiser for the first time and Went had had to come bail him out: don’t look for trouble you can't get out of. Since he’d gotten his first job at the age of fifteen: don’t take any money from Went and Mags. But the oldest and most foundationally cardinal rule to Richie’s personal code of ethics has been around since the seventh grade, when he’d hit puberty and realized exactly what it was that excited him so much about Eddie’s running shorts: don’t look at the Losers like that.

Being young and gay and running around with Bill, Stan, and Eddie every summer his entire life meant that Richie had had to make a very clear distinction, to himself, very early on. It had always been about the Losers, for him, everything he did for every second of his life between the ages of six and eighteen, when they disbanded. Bill, Stan, Eddie, Beverly, and Richie were held together by a bond of brotherhood; a bond forged over years of living intertwined in the hellish liminal space of Derry, Maine; a bond altogether too holy to fuck around with. Sure, of course Eddie is attractive, all doe eyes and runner's legs and fiery attitude. Richie knows he's attractive because he has eyes. Four of them, in fact. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re _family_ first _._ Sure, Eddie is gay, too, but that really doesn’t mean Richie is going to do anything more about his being attractive than he would about Stan being attractive, which is a situation that has been accelerating disturbingly since high school graduation (other than the mustache, which Richie just cannot get on board with, no matter how much Stan likes it). Just because he and Eddie both like dudes doesn’t mean they have to like _each other,_ and there are a hundred very good reasons they should never even think about it. So Richie maintains the wall in his mind between his friends and any of _that,_ for the benefit of the structure of things. 

The long and short of it is that Stanley can get fucked with a lawnmower.

He’s already joined Eddie and Beverly at a table when Richie finally ascends to the cafe, the three of them crowded into the only four-seater in the small cafe. The last open seat is, of course, across from Eddie. Richie slides in, returning Eddie’s bright smile, and deliberately steps on Stan’s foot under the table. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings in this chapter for referenced heavy drug use and mentions of suicide, also spoiler warnings for Ari Aster's movies.

**ii.**

The rest of Saturday is fine _.  _ The four of them sit in the cafe for an hour or so before Eddie has to leave, unable to continue ignoring the incomplete assignments in his bag that are begging for his attention. He says goodbye from beneath his puffy blue jacket and heads off towards the subway. Richie is guiltily glad to see him go, tired of Stan’s loaded glances. 

When Beverly announces that she has to return to unpacking hell, Stan gets up to join her. They ask him to come along, but he begs off with a half-true excuse about being tired. Bev peers at him shrewdly as Stan gathers his things up, but seems to pick up on his telepathic transmissions screaming  **DON'T ASK** , and doesn’t. When they leave Richie spends a long time sitting alone at their table in the now-empty store, scrolling on his phone as his exhaustion slowly grows. Eventually he hauls his ass up when Trevor starts to make fun of him, bidding his coworkers farewell as he puts his headphones in and turns up his favourite Interpol album. At home he beelines directly for his room, collapsing into bed and waking up groggy and disoriented five hours later.

Stan is doing research at the kitchen table when Richie surfaces from his room, books full of birds spread out in front of him, his mouth turned into a tight frown as he leans over his laptop. When Richie comes into the kitchen he looks up sharply, with the appearance of a man who is about to attempt another deeply uncomfortable conversation, so Richie holds a finger to his mouth and says

_ “sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” _

as he grabs an apple and three Rice Krispy squares from the kitchen and retreats again his room to rewatch the last season of  _ Bojack Horseman _ . 

His phone vibrates at 7 p.m L.A time, an hour or so after Mike gets off work. 

**10:05 p.m, mikey:** you free for a call?

**10:05 p.m, rich:** yeah!!!!!!!!

A moment later his phone rings and he answers cheerfully, in his most obnoxious Voice. 

“How the hell is the West Coast treating you, you beautiful Adonis of a man?”

Mike laughs down the line. 

“I’m good! Mostly more of the same, you know. Agriculture is as agriculture does.”

The familiar timbre of his voice fills Richie with a deep fondness, though it's small and tinny in the way that means he’s using speakerphone. Mike works at some sort of organic sustainable farm, or something of that nature. Richie doesn't really understand most of what he does, but knows he's got a long ass commute, just like everyone else in L.A. Longer, because he has to leave the city to get there. 

“How was work?” Mike asks. 

“It was okay. Stan and I got absolutely railed cause the subway was down, and then afterwards he tried to corner me in the basement and suck the soul out of my body to make up for the energy he lost, so now I’m hiding in my room fearing for my life. But, hey, my coworker Pat picked up my shift tomorrow, so I get an extra day off this week. Hashtag blessed.”

Mike laughs, but doesn’t comment on Richie's gen-x slangerism. “He tried to suck your soul out of your body, how, exactly? That doesn’t sound like Stan to me.”

Richie scoffs. “No offense, Mikey, but you have no clue. Stan has been trying to end my mortal existence since kindergarten. He’s always on the lookout for a new and exciting way.”

“I don’t think he’d have let you live with him for so long with such nefarious intentions, Rich. Is it possible that you maybe misinterpreted the situation?”

“In the basement, when he was attempting to sip my essence like a succubus with a straw?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“No, I don’t think so. His intent was pretty clear. He wants to feed on my energies.”

“I’d be surprised if Stan wants anything at all to do with your  _ energies _ . Is this about what he said about Eddie?”

“No. Maybe. It doesn’t matter. I'm over it and he was out of line and he knows it. Everything will be normal by tomorrow.”

“Okay, then. What are you doing with your extra day off?”

“Oh! I’m going to see the new Ari Aster joint with Eddie and Bev. Should be spook-a-licious.”

“Sounds like fun! Who’s Ari Aster?”

Richie flops onto his back in his bed, looking up at the popcorn texture of his ceiling. “Horror director. You saw  _ Hereditary,  _ right?”

Mike hums thoughtfully. Richie hears him tapping the wheel - a habit he has that Richie’d noticed the very first time he’d been in Mike’s car - and misses him fiercely. “Was that the one with the kids head in the dirt?”

“Yup.”

“Yeah, I didn’t like that one very much.”

Richie laughs. “You’d hate his other movie, then. Lots of head smashing and Scandenavian cult hippies. Super fucked up, but, like, a very white kind of scary.”

“Not really my thing,” Mike chuckles. “I didn’t know you liked horror. I distinctly remember you roasting me for reading a Stephen King novel, actually.”

“I was roasting Stephen King, not you! He’s just a fucking weirdo. Why do all the gay ones die, is all I wanna know.”

“They’re not all gay. Everyone is vulnerable, no one is safe from death and tragedy, et cetera, that’s kind of the point.”

“What are you defending him for, Mikey? For the racist children? The torture porn?”

“It’s not - you’re not supposed to  _ like  _ the torture parts.”

“Why write something no one is supposed to enjoy! Geeze, you wanna talk about a  _ coke problem _ , man, look no further."

“Hilarious, Rich,” Mike says dryly. “Well, I’m glad you’re able to enjoy the genre despite your prolific hatred for one of its patron saints.”

“Eh,” Richie switches ears with his phone. “I could take it or leave it, usually. Mostly Eddie fucking loves scary movies cause they make him feel smart and powerful, and it’s funny to watch him watch them.”

There’s a telling pause on Mike's end. Richie presses his eyes shut, wishing he could retract that sentence. “So, what are you doing for Christmas?” he asks.

“Not sure yet,” Mike says. “Last year was depressing, I don’t really want to go back to Florida.”

Richie hums, remembering Mike’s recounting of the first Christmas without the grandfather who had raised him - awkward, tense dinner conversation with an uncle he’d never been close with and cousins much younger than himself.

“Well, you know you’re always welcome to join us for little Loser's Christmas. Bev and I are deep into a campaign to guilt Billy into coming home this year, so your support would work out for us just grand."

"Yeah, Bill's mentioned a few times that you guys are being particularly relentless," Mike says. "You're definitely wearing him down, I’ll tell you that."

Hotshit Hollywood screenwriter Bill Denbrough hadn't been out West to visit the other Losers in over a year, not since he and Mike had chaperoned Richie's escape from L.A. Mike had visited for a few days in the summertime, a pit stop on his way to Newfoundland for vacation, but Bill kept insisting that he couldn’t find the time or money. Richie thinks it’s horseshit, and tells him so constantly.

“Are you guys celebrating Thanksgiving?” He asks, and Mike makes a dismissive sound. Richie hears his hands  _ tap-tap _ ping on the wheel. 

“Nah. No one wants to cook. Audra’s probably going to be out of town on a shoot. Plus, you know, colonization is evil.”

“Yeah,” Richie grimaces at his ceiling. “Whoopsies. Our bad.”

Mike chuckles again. “What about you guys?”

“Probably not. Eddie always goes home for the holidays cause his mom is insane, I think he and Stan agreed to split a rental car or something. Bev and I will probably just eat mac and cheese at her aunt’s place like the sad little gremlins we are.”

“You’re not gonna go home?”

Richie laughs through his nose. “Not me. Maggie and Went like to take  _ cruises _ on the holidays, in the Arctic, where they can avoid kitchen-related obligations or family gatherings of any kind. I’ll probably just see them in the new year.”

There’s a rustling from Mike’s end of the line, a delay before he says “They’ve got the right idea,” his voice much clearer, no longer on speakerphone. 

“They definitely give a good example of shirking all responsibility. Can’t say I don’t come by it honestly.”

Mike laughs, bright and close. “Not  _ all _ responsibility,” he says, and Richie can hear the smile in his voice. “Just most, maybe.”

“Ain’t you just sweet as the corn what raised you,” Richie says, breaking suddenly into the Southern Belle. 

“If the Southern girl is coming out, I’m gonna have to let you go. She gives me weird vibes.”

“Mister Michael Hand-loins! You’ve always been such a lovely, hand-some boy, and I was just here wonderin’ if maybe you wouldn't save me a song at the barn dance on the solstice this year,” Richie continues, with Mike groan-laughing through most of it. “My mama would be  _ ever  _ so happy if you did.”

“Sure, Rich, I’ll save the last dance for you. I’m actually home now, though, so I really am am going to let you go. I’ll talk to you soon. And I’ll let you know about Christmas.”

“Okay. Bye, Mikey,” Richie says, in his normal voice. “Thanks for calling. Love you big time.”

“Love you too. Have a good night.”

The line goes dead and Richie lies there for a long while, his phone resting on the pillow next to his head, thinking about his friends in L.A. 

Mike had been a godsend for Richie out there. Sent from Jewish God directly to Richie, he was almost positive. 

They had worked together for two years at a cocktail bar in Santa Monica, where Mike had fit in just fine and Richie had constantly been walking on eggshells, full to the brim with anxiety. They had hit it off almost immediately; Richie, dealing with the dissolvement of his friend group and left to fend for himself for the first time as Bill’s career took off, had been enthralled by Mike’s warmth, his steadfast confidence, and quick wit. As far as Richie could tell, Mike had been endeared by Richie’s complete lack of self preservation. 

Well, endeared to a certain point, at least. 

It was in this same bar where Richie had discovered his deep affinity for cocaine-fueled shenanigans, thanks to the shocking generosity of a Drag Queen who daylighted as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur: the inciting incident of a truly spectacular shitshow of a breakdown which over the course of two years Mike had watched, tried to stop, then helped to pick up the pieces of - building a deep friendship with Bill along the way. They, the two of them, stood vigil by Richie’s side in the aftermath, after shit really hit the fan. It was a burden Mike hadn’t been responsible for in any of the ways that Bill had been, but had chosen to shoulder anyways. He’d even moved into their place with them, helping to fill in the cracks that Richie no longer could once he’d lost his job. Such was Mike’s unofficial inauguration into the tightly knit group of five Mainers who had been calling themselves The Losers since middle school. 

Mike had been the one to call the ambulance to the bar on the night Richie had graduated into the big leagues of mixing pharmaceuticals. But Richie tries not to think about that night, or what would have happened if Mike had not followed him into that bathroom, at all, ever.

Once upon a time, Richie had imagined he’d be some kind of Funny Man. A shock jock or a comedian, maybe an actor. Something glamorous and public. He’s always needed attention, he knows this, has self-psycho-analyzed it to death, and he’s well aware of the factors which led to him spending his early life exasperating both his teachers and friends by loudly and constantly joking around.  _ Thanks mom and dad, and big shouts out to untreated ADHD!  _

Everyone had always seemed to assume that his unceasing and manic energy would carry him straight to the stage. At the end of high school, when everyone had been set on moving on and away and starting their lives anew, he had been more than eager to hop on a plane with Big Bill and follow those dreams with nothing but the utmost confidence. But shooting for the stars was hard fucking work, and he’d realized in very short order that while he liked being on stage, he simply didn’t have the drive to power through garbage venues and garbage sets and garbage social networks. L.A had simply chewed him up and spit him back out a few thousand dollars poorer.

Bartending had provided well while his comedy career failed to take off, both where money was concerned and when it came to his chronic validation-seeking, but it would have been something like a death sentence to return to the industry when he landed in New York. He’d never have made it through two years of relative sobriety if he was constantly surrounded by drunk people _. _ At the coffee shop, there’s never cocaine on the bar. His customers and coworkers are always sober. He shows up for work each morning at 6:30 a.m, works until around 2 p.m, and is in bed by 11 p.m most nights. It can be brutal, occasionally, for the early-morning-ness of it, but the shift goes by the quick and it’s satisfying work. There’s no risk. He always has time for his friends, and his friends are close by. He’s fucking alive. 

Plus, Trevor is a good and fair person. He's the first boss that Richie has ever had that he actually, genuinely respects. It's a rare thing in the service industry, to have a leader who never talks down to or belittles their employees. All-in-all, Richie feels lucky to be where he is, most of the time, and knows he should be grateful.

He picks his phone up and opens his texts with Bill (Bill, who hung the stars for them when they were children, who had partnered with Richie for every science lab throughout high school, who had been the one to look Richie in the eyes and tell him  _ You don’t have to stick it out here if it’s hurting you. You’re not a failure if you leave. It’s okay to go home, Rich). _

Richie misses them. He hasn’t been out to visit them since leaving. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to step foot in the city of L.A again without becoming physically ill. 

**10:48 p.m, rich:** come home for christmas or i’m gonna throw myself off the empire state building and leave a note saying it’s your fault

**10:50 p.m, billiam:** Suicide threats are emotional manipulation. Seek counselling.

**10:51 p.m, rich:** I can’t live without your sweet lovin any longer, Big Billiam

**10:51 p.m, rich:** I do not wish to walk the earth if you’re going to deprive me of your beautiful face for another year. It’s not worth the pain.

**10:51 p.m, rich:** my lovely, talented Billy… come home to us…. Don’t make momma beg

**10:52 p.m, billiam:** You're literally begging right now.

Bill attaches a selfie taken in his and Mike’s kitchen. Richie's old kitchen. Richie’s phone vibrates as he’s taking a responding photo of himself with the back of his hand pressed dramatically against his forehead, swooning. 

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

_ today _

**5:44 a.m, dipshit: *1 attachment***

**5:44 a.m, dipshit:** _@Micycle_

**9:34 a.m, Big Bev:** no nudes in the chat

**10:12 a.m, spaghetti:** Richie, what’s wrong with you?

**11:45 a.m, Micycle:** Hey buddy, good for you!

_ now _

**10:52 p.m, Big Bill:** I have been broken. It’s official. 

**10:52 p.m, Big Bill:** I will attend a little Loser’s Christmas

**10:53 p.m, dipshit:** BILL 

**10:53 p.m, dipshit:** YES

**10:53 p.m, dipshit:** THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER

In their private chat, Richie sends Bill a long row of heart emojis, grinning from ear to ear when Bill returns them, plus some random flags and bells, and a turtle.

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

**10:53 p.m, dipshit:** THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER

**10:54 p.m, spaghetti:** COME EARLY SO I CAN SEE YOU 

**10:54 p.m, Big Bill:** We shall see

**10:54 p.m, dipshit:** spaghetti stay for christmas

**10:55 p.m, spaghetti:** don’t start

**10:55 p.m, dipshit:** fine. go to Derry. I do not care. Bill is all I need in this life

**10:55 p.m, spaghetti:** :-(

**10:56 p.m, Big Bill:** :-)

**10:56 p.m, Big Bev:** MY BEST BILLY

**10:56 p.m, Big Bev:** YES!!

**10:56 p.m, Big Bev:** A LOSERS CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!

**10:57 p.m, spaghetti:** :-(

**10:57 p.m, Big Bev:** eddie stay for christmas

**10:57 p.m, spaghetti:** i

**10:57 p.m, spaghetti:** can’t

**10:58 p.m, Big Bill:** :-(

**11:00 p.m, Micycle:** damn, the guilt trip worked. Good job @ _ Big Bev @dipshit _

**11:00 p.m, dipshit:** ur next

**11:01 p.m, Micycle:** :-o

The group chat falls silent again after that, and Richie resumes  _ Bojack.  _ Knowing that Eddie is probably (definitely) sulking about Christmas if he’s still awake, Richie starts sending him videos of the funniest lines. He’s seen the show enough times that he knows exactly when to start recording. After the third one, Eddie responds. 

**11:30 p.m, eduardo:** why are you still up

**11:30 p.m, rich:** accidentally slept all day 

**11:30 p.m, rich:** after work 

**11:31 p.m, rich:** whoops lol

**11:31 p.m, eduardo:** your sleep schedules gonna be fucked

**11:31 p.m, eduardo:** rip

**11:31 p.m, rich:** why are YOU still up spaghetward

**11:31 p.m, eduardo:** noooooooooooo

**11:32 p.m, eduardo:** no spaghetward

**11:32 p.m, eduardo:** it barely makes sense

**11:32 p.m, eduardo:** i’m in research paper hell

**11:32 p.m, rich:** :-(

**11:32 p.m, rich:** it makes sense if you have big brain

**11:32 p.m, eduardo:** I have no brain I guess

**11:32 p.m, rich:** this I know

**11:33 p.m, eduardo:** >:(

**11:33 p.m, eduardo:** fuck you very much

**11:33 p.m, eduardo:** i have to finish this paper tonight if I’m going to the movie tomorrow

**11:33 p.m, eduardo:** which i am so i have to finish

**11:33 p.m, rich:** no more Bojack vids?

**11:34 p.m, eduardo:** no you’re fine

**11:34 p.m, eduardo:** they keep me sane. otherwise I may forget joy exists at all and throw myself into a lake

**11:34 p.m, eduardo:** i just can’t really talk

**11:34 p.m, rich:** nooo don't throw urself in a lake ur so sexi haha xp

**11:35 p.m, rich:** you don’t have to say a thing. i can just imagine what you would say anyways

**11:35 p.m, rich:** probably with near 100% accuracy

**11:35 p.m, rich:** “ha, ha, richie, you are so funny, you are my best friend”

**11:37 p.m, eduardo:** -_- 

**11:37 p.m, eduardo:** ha, ha,

Richie keeps sending him videos all the way through season 6, all the way until 2 a.m when Eddie sends him “DONE”, and then “goodnight”, and then, a few minutes later, one green heart. 

Richie stares at the heart for a long time, contemplating, before sending one back. A red one.

xxx

He wakes up close to noon with a start, thinking for one sickening second that he’s slept through his shift before he remembers that he’s off the hook today. He rolls over and savours the softness of the bed beneath him, dozing off for a little while longer before he wakes up for real. 

The group chat has a couple new notifications; Stan reacting to the news of Bill agreeing to Christmas and more frowny faces from Eddie, who must be the saddest little man alive. He also has a text from Bev, informing him that Eddie is meeting them at her place around 2:30, after he’s done his laundry. 

He sends her a thumbs up emoji, then opens his texts with Eddie and stares at the little green heart some more before biting his tongue and shooting off a  _ “good morning spaghetti” _ .

Which  _ should  _ be casual, because he’s allowed to send a good morning text to a friend he’s had for over half his life and it doesn’t have to mean anything more than that - except that Stanley is in his head now, and Bill has  _ always  _ been in his head, the fucker, and he can’t help but feel like he’s somehow doing something weird. Which is ridiculous, in any case, cause Eddie texts him good morning all the time. Richie is almost always up before Eddie because of his job, and Eddie texts him most mornings when he gets up for school. It doesn’t mean anything more than that.  _ Good morning. You are awake and I am awake.  _

Eddie texts him back  _ “good afternoon dickchard”  _ and his chest tightens. He shakes the feeling loose.

He’s out of the house by 1, walking the familiar path to  _ Frontier  _ with his headphones in and his music loud enough that he cannot hear the traffic around him. The sun is out but it’s still freezing cold, and when he gets to the cafe he has to stand in the doorway, blind, until his glasses de-fog. 

_ Frontier _ is full, but not busy. Richie can tell just by looking around that each patron has been there for at least an hour, using the free office space. A few regulars smile at him and he smiles back, only being polite until he spots Ben in the corner, at his regular table, and it evolves into a genuine grin. Ben returns it with an eager wave. 

Behind the bar Stan and Pat are deep in discussion, Pat’s book forgotten on the counter. They don’t seem to have noticed Richie enter. When he approaches they glance up in sync, and Richie catches one second of a  _ very  _ interesting expression on Stan’s face before it pinches itself into something serious and he takes Richie in with a speculative little frown.

“I’m not mad at you,” Richie tells him, flat out, and it’s mostly true. If Richie were more inclined to hold Stanley accountable for things, in the long term kind of way, then he may actually have grounds to be more angry about it - but fortunately he has been known to cut his friends boundless amounts of slack, because they extend such courtesies to him.

Stan’s expression clears, his relief visible before he settles into practiced disdain. Pat looks between them, surprised. 

“Good,” Stan says. “I’m not mad at you.”

Richie throws his hands up. “You had nothing to be mad at me for!”

Stan shrugs. “Well in the interest of being transparent. I thought I’d let you know.”

Pat laughs a bright, tinkly laugh that Richie has never heard before. He turns to her, eyebrows shooting up, and she quickly decides to be busy at the other end of the bar. Richie looks at her back for a moment, then turns to Stan, eyebrows still raised. Stan’s gaze is carefully blank. Poker Face activated. __

“So… can I get a fuckin’ coffee or what, Stan, my Man?”

Stan hums, deliberating. “We don’t offer coffee to rude boys with potty mouths,” he says. “You will have to ask nicely.”

Having re-established the natural balance of their relationship, Richie leans across the counter and sticks out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout, reaching to put his hands on both sides of Stan’s face and squishing his cheeks between his hands. “Please, Stanielle? Please may I have coffee? I am just a sad little man with no caffeine in his hands. I beg of you.”

Stan blinks. Richie knows he is suppressing a smile when he shrugs Richie off and turns to fix his drink. Drip coffee with oat milk and sugar - Richie doesn’t have to tell him. 

“Thank you, Manly Stanley,” he says, when Stan sets it down in front of him.

“That will be… five thousand dollars.” 

“Go ahead and put it on my tab,” he says, in the Voice of the Southern Belle. 

“Hey!” Pat calls from the end of the bar. “No Voices. We’ve discussed this.”

Richie catches Stan grinning before he turns away again, reorganizing cups by the espresso machine. 

“I am not on the gosh darned clock, Mizz Blum,” he says, amping it up as flamboyant as possible. “So you can’t tell me jack shit, fuck all _. _ ”

There are no empty tables in the cafe, so Richie makes his way over to Ben’s. Ben looks up, surprised, when he notices Richie standing over him. 

“Heya, Haystack,” Richie says, dropping the Voice. “Mind if I sit with you?”

The nickname is the result of Richie having forgot Ben’s name for the first three months of their acquaintance-ship, but remembering a specific story he’d told about growing up in the midwest. Eventually Richie had had to come clean and ask Ben’s name again, once they’d started talking every day, but the nickname had stuck, as Richie's nicknames tended to.

“Sure,” he says. He reaches to shut his laptop as Richie sits, and Richie suddenly feels bad. 

“You don’t have to stop working!” He says. “I promise I can sit here quietly. I just need the seat, I won’t disturb you.”

Somewhere behind him, Stan scoffs. Richie turns in his seat, eyes narrowed, but neither he nor Pat meets his eye. They’re at the far end of the bar, heads bowed together once more, ignoring him rather obviously. Richie puts a file in his  _ Bug Stan About  _ folder. 

“It’s alright,” Ben is saying. He grins, a little sheepish. “I need a break anyways, my brain was beginning to go numb.”

“Building buildings is tough work, huh?” Richie says, sipping his coffee. Stan’s made it spot on, the bastard. “Who’da thunk?”

Ben laughs, and Richie can’t help grinning at him. Ben is an incredibly sweet human being, he’s learned over the last year. He’s always kind, and patient, and he’s  _ just  _ the right amount of awkward for Richie to be wildly endeared to him - forever drawn to the dweebs and the dorks. He’s not hard on the eyes, either. Richie knows he works out at a gym close by, because Ben has told him multiple times about his  _ regimen _ and  _ trainer _ . He’s just a nice enough guy that Richie can abide it. 

They chat for about half an hour before the door behind Ben opens and a familiar mop of curly red hair catches Richie’s eye. 

“Marsh, you beautiful beast!”

Bev looks around, startled, and scrunches up her nose when she spots Richie. He stands and embraces her, her returning squeeze much harder than is necessary. 

“What’re you doing here?” He asks when they pull apart. 

“Getting coffee,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Hi Stan,” she calls over his shoulder. 

“Morning, Bev,” Stan replies, then begins making her coffee.

Richie frowns down at Ben’s table, which is very much not large enough for the three of them. 

“Make it to go,” he calls to Stan. “And I’ll have another to go, too.”

“Say please and thank you, you muppet-looking fuck,” Stan mutters, loud enough for the entire store to hear. Pat is suspiciously silent. Richie narrows his eyes at her and she pretends, again, not to notice, so he turns his attention back to Ben, who is watching their little  _ Friends and Family Discount  _ feud with wide eyes. 

Or perhaps the wide eyes are just for Bev, who seems to have caught his attention in a big way. 

“Ah!” Richie waves a hand between them. “I’m being rude. My apologies, Haystack. This is my good friend Beverly Marsh. She hails from the homeland of Derry, Maine with Stan and me. And Eddie, but who cares. Bev, this is Ben.”

Bev’s mouth makes a little ‘o’. She points at Ben and looks at Richie. 

“Ben!”

“Uh, yes?” Ben asks, cheeks slightly pink. 

“I’ve heard of you,” Bev says proudly. "I think I've seen you here before, too."

Ben looks at Richie, surprised. Richie smiles widely, a little embarrassed. “Oh, yes, I mentioned you! Don’t worry, though, Benny, nothing untoward. Bev here just knows you’re a grad student, soon to be architect." He pauses before he adds, cheekily, “And she knows that Eddie likes your Prada bag, and that he thinks you're too good to be my friend.”

Ben’s expression of shock deepens at the implication that another person knows who he is. “Eddie?”

Richie holds up a hand horizontally, level with his shoulder. Understanding weaves through Ben’s expression. 

“Oh, your boyfriend?”

Silence falls between them. Beverly’s eyes snap to Richie’s face, and Richie is suddenly very aware of the exact angle of his spine and what his hands are currently doing. He glances at Stan without meaning to, and is chagrined to see him staring at the ceiling with a pained expression as he stirs Richie's coffee. After a beat too long, Richie manages to clear his throat. 

“Eddie is not my boyfriend. Just a friend.”

Ben’s pink cheeks go beet fucking red. 

“I’m - oh my god, I’m sorry, I just assumed - I  _ shouldn’t have,  _ obviously, I guess I misspoke. I’m so sorry. I - ”

Beverly puts a hand on his shoulder, and Ben goes perfectly still under her touch. 

“Don’t worry, Ben. Honestly, it’s an easy mistake." Richie looks at her, horrified, but she's not looking at him anymore. She's holding Ben's extremely uncomfortable gaze. “I get mistaken for his girlfriend all the time. He's that dotefull on all his friends.”

“Speak for yourself,” Stan says, placing both of their coffees on the counter by the cash meaningfully. He locks eyes with Richie intently for exactly three seconds before he puts on a blank face and crosses his arms over his chest, standing back to watch Beverly's expert diffusion. Richie's face continues to burn. 

When nobody says anything, Beverly looks Ben right in the eyes and says “In highschool everyone briefly thought Stan and Richie were hate-fucking. They used to sneak off to the corn fields together.”

"Hey!" Richie says, making vague swatting motions in her direction as Stan's carefully void expression twists into disgust. “We were  _ not  _ \- we were birdwatching!”

It’s true, but as he says it out loud he realizes that it sounds like a very lame excuse for fucking in a corn field, and his face grows even redder. Ben’s eyes go wide, his expression slipping from discomfort to disbelief, and then he begins to laugh. He laughs so hard that tears come to his eyes, doubled up on his table. Beverly is grinning at him, and Richie looks at him laughing and feels some of the mortification drain from his limbs - and then a little bit more. After a moment he can’t help but join in, laughter bubbling out of him as regular sensation returns to his body, face cooling. 

“You didn’t even go to our highschool,” Stan says, disgusted still. Bev shrugs.

“I have ears everywhere.”

Ben can’t seem to stop laughing, and so Richie can't either. Some of the other regulars are looking at Beverly as though she climbed out of a sewer, but Richie doesn't really care. No one who matters will care. Except for maybe Stanley, who turns and stalks away with his arms still crossed, muttering mean things about Bill Denbrough all the way down the stairs to the basement.

"Tell me when they're gone," he calls over his shoulder to Pat.

"Copy," she responds.

Beverly leans past Richie to get their drinks as Ben wipes the last of his mirth from his face. He meets Richie’s eye and looks sheepish once more.

"For what it's worth, I'm  _ not _ too good to be your friend. You guys are probably way too cool for me."

Richie meets Beverly's eye and then looks away again quickly before they have a chance to begin another giggling fit.

“Not a chance, Benny-boy,” Richie says, smiling. "I'll see you around, okay?"

The shop is far too narrow for them to continue standing in the middle of it, and they've put on enough of a show for the day, so Richie pats Ben’s shoulder and they move towards the door. 

“Yeah, see you soon, Richie. Nice to meet you, Beverly.”

“You too, Ben,” Beverly calls over her shoulder.

For a second Richie considers inviting him along - but then they are outside in the blustering air and it’s too late. When they get to the sidewalk he cuts a glance sideways at Bev and finds her already looking at him, her face pulled with concern. 

“Not a word, Marsh,” he warns as they begin walking towards her place. 

“Alright,” she says. “Whatever you say.” Then, after a beat, “Why didn’t you guys mention that Ben is  _ hot _ ?”

“Don’t objectify the man, Bev. He’s got a beautiful soul. He’s gonna be an  _ architect. _ ”

Beverly rolls her eyes. They’re turning onto her street when both their phones go off.

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

_ today _

**6:13 a.m, Staniel:** Bill!!

**6:13 a.m, Staniel:** So excited for your capitalist gentile holiday!!

**9:45 a.m, spaghetti:** :-(

**11:27 a.m, Big Bill:** Thank you Stan 

**11:28 a.m, Big Bill:** Eds I’ll try to come early I promise 

**11:28 a.m, Big Bill:** I want to see you too

**11:32 a.m, spaghetti:** :-((((

**11:45 a.m, Big Bill:** <33

_ now _

**2:20 p.m, spaghetti:** Bev I’m here let me in

Richie laughs and peers down the street towards Bev’s building, spotting Eddie’s blue jacket on the front steps. He is unable to stop himself from hollering down the block, his earlier embarrassment rolling into overcompensation overdrive now that there's no one around to  _ perceive  _ his behaviours except Beverly.

“ _ SPAGHETTI MAN! _ ”

Eddie’s head snaps up, along with a few others, and he waves at them before pulling off his mitten to give Richie the finger. Richie laughs again and picks up his pace until he’s somewhere between speed walking and jogging. When he’s within arms reach, he reaches out and ruffles Eddie’s hair, redirecting his urge to wrap his arms around Eddie and lift him off the ground like he used to when they were kids. 

“Where’s your hat, shortstack?” He asks.

“Hello, Richie, it’s nice to see you, too. Yes, I had a nice morning, thanks for asking,” Eddie replies tartly. He smooths out his hair and fixes Richie with a Look. “I lost it.”

“You only have one hat?” Richie asks as Bev catches up with him.

“Hiya, Eds,” Bev says, pulling him into a short embrace. 

"Hi, Bev," he says as he embraces her back. Richie reaches out and messes up his hair again. 

“You should have more than one hat, young man,” Richie says, in the Voice of the Geezer. 

Eddie swats at his hand. “Alright,  _ grampa, _ hows about you leave me the hell alone?”

“You’re a tiny and insolent man!” Richie gripes, in character, as Beverly unlocks the door and leads them into the building.

“Woof, Rich,” she says. “That’s got to be the worst voice you’ve ever done. Please retire it.”

“I’ve been retired for over ten years, young lady. I’ve seen things you can’t imagine!” Richie continues. Ahead on the stairs Bev groans, but Eddie snickers. 

The place looks much better than it had on Friday, probably because Stan has organizational skills to match Marie Kondo. Bev's boxes of clothes have been stacked up against the wall, and a lamp has been added to the corner by the bed. Richie throws himself lengthwise onto the couch, hogging it deliberately, twisting his neck to seek out Beverly’s wooden weed box, where the weed things are kept. Eddie lifts his feet off the other end of the couch. Rather than push them onto the floor, like he’s supposed to, he scoots in underneath and lets them fall across his lap like a seatbelt. Richie peers at him, and he looks back with an expression that says  _ What are you looking at? _

Beverly plops the weed box down in Richie’s lap and then heads to the kitchen, pouring them all glasses of water and padding back in on bare feet to set them down on the boxes which have been strategically left where a coffee table may eventually go. Eddie reaches for his immediately, leaning over in a way that folds his entire body around Richie’s legs. Richie begins rolling a joint with deliberate focus. Bev sits across from them, perched on the edge of her bed. 

“I met Ben the grad student!” she exclaims, suddenly, and Richie casts her a warning look. She glances back evenly. Eddie raises his eyebrows at her.

“And?”

“He's hot."

"Yeah, duh."

"And he said you're absolutely wrong and he's not too good to be our friend." She says, apparently oblivious to Richie’s discomfort. When Eddie turns to glare at him, he doesn’t look up from his hands. 

“Why would you even tell him I said that? Now he’s gonna think I’m a huge dumbass. Or he thinks that I’m, like, into him and that I’m some sort of big weirdo. Why do you hate me, Richie? Why do you do things like this to me?”

“You are a big weirdo,” Richie says, without looking up. “I don’t hate you. I had to tell him so that I could get an answer.”

“An answer about  _ what _ ?” 

Unable to keep his eyes averted, Richie glances up and makes a face like he thinks Eddie is the stupidest person on the planet. Not far from the truth.

“Whether he’s  _ too good  _ for me, Spaghetti, keep up.”

Eddie’s face does something complex, slipping midway through remorse before he rolls his eyes and shakes his head at the same time, making a disbelieving noise. “I never said he was  _ too good  _ for you, ass-hat, I said he’s too  _ grown up _ to want to hang out with - with like, losers and stoners.”

Richie cocks his head and latches onto that, his hands pausing. 

“Are you the loser, if we're the stoners?" he asks. "Surely you don’t include yourself in that category, Mr. Fake Asthma, so you must be referring to Miss Marsh and I.”

A familiarly nettled look takes over Eddie’s face. 

“First of all, we're all the losers, you just fit both categories and I only fit one, so fuck off. And I obviously meant that Ben probably has like, grown up friends who do sophisticated stuff for fun. Not just, like, sitting around smoking weed all afternoon talking about which  _ Charmin _ bear fucks which. They’re a fucking family, it’s not that hard to figure out." 

Richie stares at him for a second, watching as a blush creeps up into his cheeks. Then he turns to Beverly. “I don’t think Eddie knows that he’s a grown up,” he says. “I think he might think we’re still children. Eddie, my darling, do you know what year it is?”

Beverly leans forward, feigning concern. “Eddie, honey,” she says, as Eddie begins to vibrate gently with the injustice of their ganging up on him. “How old are you?”

“I'm twenty-four,” Eddie says sourly. “I  _ know  _ that we’re grown ups.”

“You’re, like, almost twenty-five years old,” Richie tells him. He’s keeping his legs tense, lest Eddie try to throw him off and spill the contents of the weed box everywhere. His fist is balled on Richie’s shin. “You know that, right, Eds? Your birthday is in like ten days. Did you know?”

Eddie puts his head back against the couch cushion and looks at the ceiling in the same pained way Stan had earlier that afternoon - a mannerism they share. It only serves to remind Richie of the  _ misunderstanding _ they'd had, and he is suddenly excruciatingly aware of how tangled up he and Eddie are at present. He doesn't withdraw, though, cause they’re casual, it’s casual, he and Eddie are just comfortable with one another. They're always tangled up. It was just a misunderstanding.

“Yes, Richie. I know when my own birthday is.”

“Okay, just checking.” Richie pops the finished joint between his lips and sparks it, taking a long toke before handing it to Beverly. He realizes that Eddie is looking at him after he’s passed it along. 

“Anyways, Ben probably didn’t know who I was cause Richie only ever calls me dumbshit nicknames,” he says when Richie catches his eye. “He probably thought my legal name was Spaghetti.”

“He knew you only by your tiny physique,” Richie tells him, and laughs when Eddie hits him in the shin with his fist.

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t think he’s a grown up,” Bev says, grinning. “Maybe he thinks there’s a height requirement.”

“I don’t - I know we’re grown ups, okay! Stop - calling me short!” Eddie splutters, indignant. “I’m not that short! Five seven is like, perfectly average, you're both just freakishly tall.  _ And _ you  _ know _ what I mean, I meant, like, Ben's probably very responsible, he looks like he’s got his shit together, and we’re - we’re -”

“We’re responsible,” Richie interrupts. “We’re drinking water.”

He gestures at his own untouched glass. Eddie looks between the glass and his face, then at Beverly, who is nodding solemnly. She holds the joint out to him and he sighs, defeated, before taking it. He takes the tiniest little puff, probably all that he’ll smoke, and passes it along to Richie. 

“So what did he really say, then?” Eddie asks. 

Bev smiles and touches a hand to her chest tenderly. “He thinks we’re  _ too cool  _ for him."

All traces of aggravation fall off of Eddie's face. “Oh, no,” he says. “He’s sweet.” 

"Right?" Richie says, around a mouthful of smoke. "All those in favour of making Haystack our new friend say  _ aye. _ "

"Aye," Beverly says without pause, as Richie passes her the joint once more.

"Haystack?" Eddie asks. Richie shrugs.

"He's a lovely midwestern boy, and I briefly forgot his name."

Eddie peers at him, gaze strangely calculating, for just long enough that Richie raises his eyebrows questioningly.

"Aye," he says finally, and Richie claps his hands together. 

"Perfect. Maybe we'll even get Bev laid."

"Hell yeah," Bev says, and puts a hand up for a high five. Richie has to lean across the box-table to oblige her, and when he pulls back he rearranges himself so that he is no longer draped across Eddie. 

They spend the rest of the time they have before they have to leave pondering the things Ben might do for fun, leaning heavily into Eddie’s assumption that he is  _ sophisticated _ . Wine tastings, charcuterie parties, and volunteering at an animal shelter are all guesses made. Upon learning that Ben is a bit of a  _ gym person _ Beverly’s eyes light up with mirth, prompting Richie to goad her about whether or not she is capable of doing a sit-up, until she obliges him with proof. After they've watched her complete ten successfully, Eddie claims he is capable of doing a chin-up - which Richie  _ cannot _ believe without proof, but there aren’t any chin-uppable structures in Beverly’s apartment to resolve the resulting argument.

Later, when Eddie heads to the bathroom to take care of business before the movie, Richie hisses into Beverly’s ear as she pulls on her boots.

“ _ Whyyyyy would you bring Ben up?”  _

She exhales through her nose, exasperated, and keeps an eye on the bathroom door as she whispers back. 

“ _ He’s gonna be around, right? You just made him our friend! Now we’ve covered all the bases in case he mentions anything about Eddie.”  _

_ “That makes no fucking sense, Beverly!” _ Richie whisper-yells.  _ “Why would Ben bring it up? He was embarrassed! I'm fuckin' embarrassed!” _

_ “Be quiet! You’re the one who told him Eddie thought he was too good for us, what if he asks Eddie about the bag thing? At least now we don’t have to rehash the story with him in the room!” _

_ “I don’t understand your mind! Why are you making this so weird?” _

_ “Just trust me! You’re the one being weird!” _

He glares down at her across their moderate height disparity, doing his best to seem intimidating even while bundled up like the Michelin man in anticipation of the cold. He supposes that he fails, because Beverly looks anything but convinced - in fact she is giving off the distinct impression that she’s making fun of him, her eyes bright and the corners of her mouth quirked up. He's about to ask her just what the hell is so funny when Eddie throws the bathroom door open, doing so as he does almost everything with just slightly  _ too much  _ energy.

Richie glances behind him, at the wall, as though he sees something interesting. Then he winces at his own stupidity and takes a quick step back from Bev, who has assumed a bland looking smile in Eddie’s direction. Eddie looks between them. 

“What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Bev sing-songs, and heads out the door. Richie follows close on her heels. 

“What the hell, guys! Wait up!”

It’s clear that Richie has made a mistake by bringing it up again, as Eddie tries to extract information from them all the way to the subway. He continues pestering them about their whispered non-fight, unwilling to let even one thing go in his entire life, until Beverly makes up a story about his birthday present to get him off their backs. For this Richie is begrudgingly grateful, as he is more or less incapable of lying directly to Eddie’s face - something Eddie knows all too well, and will use to his advantage.

Eddie looks surprised for a moment at the implication that they’d been arguing about him, then adopts a pleased little smile for the rest of their walk, so obviously smug that Richie is glad that he actually  _ does  _ have a birthday present worth Eddie’s anticipation this year.

At the theater Richie makes Beverly buy his popcorn to repay him for the cost of her ticket, as well as for the discomfort he’s endured at her hand. When she asks why  _ Eddie _ doesn’t have to reimburse him, he smiles as sweet as honey and explains that Eddie is a  _ student  _ without an  _ income, _ and that Richie is happy to cover him until he is a wildly successful  _ statistics man _ , at which point all dues will be paid in full. Beside him, Eddie nods along dutifully until the part about buying a car for Richie's thirtieth birthday.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning in this chapter for drinking and then a short graphic description of a bad hangover, but it's brief and easy to skip over. also timestamps matter.

**iii.**

The movie, in Richie’s opinion, is better than  _ Hereditary  _ but not as good as  _ Midsommar _ . When he voices this opinion as they leave the theatre Eddie looks up at him in disgust with a Twizzler hanging out of his mouth and begins a twenty minute run-down of all the reasons why  _ Hereditary _ is better than  _ Midsommar _ , dovetailing nicely into an oral essay of somehow already completely formed opinions on all the reasons that the new film was better than them both. Richie locks eyes with Beverly when they step off the curb outside, grinning as they start across the parking lot towards the boulevard. She smirks right back. 

Though he generally has a lot to say, it’s become more infrequent through the years for Eddie to pick up the speed and verbosity that he had had in spades when they were children. His natural cadence has slowed to a more believably human pace over time, as he's gained more of an awareness of the world around him. But the capacity is still there, when he’s feeling passionate enough, and Richie lives for these cherished glimpses inward at the familiar and fantastic Eddie Kaspbrak; the human steamroller, the rogue auctioneer, the kid who could tell you six different ways to go fuck yourself in one breath. The same chaotic bastard Richie had been ass-and-bench with way back when their biggest problems were related to the plot of any given episode of  _ Buffy the Vampire Slayer. _ It’s a comfort to know him, still, so deeply. It’s the whole reason Richie watches scary movies, the only reason he has seen enough scary movies to argue Eddie’s analysis of the scary movie they’ve just seen. 

Committed to Making a Night of It, as Richie has insisted, they take their discussion all the way to the subway and across the city to a bar that Beverly likes. Somewhere close to the apparel shop where she works, a small hole-in-the-wall type place with craft beers and expensive finger foods where she knows all the bartenders and the bartenders are called  _ tap attendants _ . The three of them find a table in the corner of the room once they've secured a round, tucking in on stools which are just slightly on the too-high side for anyone who stands under six feet. Eddie looks Richie in the face as he situates himself, eyebrows raised as though daring Richie to make a joke about his height - Richie looks squarely back, trying to communicate with his mind that Eddie is telling on himself and so the joke doesn't need to be made.

Richie frequently gets the impression that Beverly knows everyone in every corner of New York, which isn’t truly all that strange, given the fact that she’s lived there since the end of freshman year when her dad was sent to prison and she moved in with her aunt. Sometimes it feels like they can hardly get down the street without bumping into some acquaintance of hers or another. It used to make Richie nervous, constantly meeting new people, back when he first transplanted into the city feeling sick and afraid of himself - but now he finds it oddly comforting, to see how many cool people all over the place are vying to be a part of Beverly’s social life and know that she will always pick the Losers in the end anyways. Sure enough, twenty minutes into their first round when Eddie is berating Richie through laughter for using the word  _ diegesis _ (he’s  _ not _ trying to be pretentious, despite what Eddie thinks, he just knows words), someone Beverly knows from her internship appears at the edge of their table and asks to buy her a drink. She accepts and stands, subtly rolling her eyes in Richie’s direction when he makes a lecherous face.

Over the next hour the volume in the bar increases such that Richie is forced to drape his arm over the back of Eddie’s chair and lean into his space in order to be heard over the other patrons. It’s busy, for a Sunday, and Eddie sits right back against his arm, solid and warm and impossibly close, tilting his head so that he can speak into Richie’s ear. His cheeks are slightly red beneath his freckles and his breath is warm and sweet-smelling, strangely familiar in a way that makes Richie's insides hum.

He goes to the bar twice to fetch drinks, trying and failing to catch Beverly’s eye both times. The second time he’s standing there waiting for their beers to be poured, he pulls out his phone and shoots her a text.

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

**10:38 p.m, dipshit:** _@Big Bev_ for someone who was so obviously not gonna fuck that guy you’re sure spendin a lot of time at his table!!!!

**10:39 p.m, spaghetti:** ghghfre lol

**10:39 p.m, Staniel:** Use your private chats???

**10:39 p.m, dipshit:** I don’t think I shall

An hour later, Richie is drunker than he has been in  _ months _ . Eddie’s got his elbow on the table and his whole body is turned towards Richie, and he’s talking with his hands and leaning into Richie’s side in a way that has Richie reaching for his glass every minute or so, in search of a way to keep his own hands busy. At some point Beverly returns to their table, looks between them, says something they can’t hear over the music, and leaves again. Richie can't keep track of where his sentences are going, or what Eddie is trying to tell him, because they keep breaking off into peals of laughter, and everything Richie says Eddie seems to  _ yes, and _ without even knowing what  _ yes, and _ -ing  _ is.  _ Richie spares a second to think it over and realizes that Eddie has been  _ yes, and _ -ing him since the birth of time, more or less, but when he tries to explain this realization to Eddie he barely gets halfway through the thought before they’ve run themselves off course again talking about the stupidest aspects of improv. Eddie gets the fourth round.

It’s close to midnight when Beverly returns for keeps, regrettably only half as drunk as them. She perches on her stool for one more round, her eyebrows climbing higher on her forehead every time Richie looks over at her - which is not often, because after the fifth beer he’s having a very hard time keeping his eyes off the bow of Eddie’s lips. He can’t be bothered to pretend he’s not looking, either, his inhibitions dropped so low they’re sitting somewhere around his ankles. Suddenly all the good reasons he has not to plaster himself to Eddie’s face, the ones he's been keeping track of since high school, don't matter. The only thing that  _ does _ is how Eddie keeps touching his arm gently, fingers lingering over skin every time Richie makes him laugh. When he puts his hand there and doesn’t lift it back away, Richie feels a thrill run all the way through his nervous system. Shortly after, Beverly leans across the table and sticks her head between their faces. 

“I have to work in the morning,” she says. “I'm gonna go.”

Richie’s eyes slide over to her and he thinks  _ good, leave,  _ before he sees the look she is giving him and thinks  _ oh, god, she’s leaving.  _ He sloppily attempts to play the Boy card and insist that they walk her to the subway, but Eddie gives him a look like he’s just suggested they swim across the Atlantic, and Beverly shakes her head. Richie gets precariously to his feet anyways as she makes her exit, telling Eddie he’s going to the bathroom, realizing only as he dislodges himself from the table how deeply entwined they’d become as they sat there. He suddenly feels exposed, a heat on his skin that is only very partially due to embarrassment. 

His phone buzzes in his ass pocket while he’s rocking a piss. 

**12:14 a.m, bev:** how drunk are you really

**12:14 a.m, bev:** is it Bad Decision oclock?

He wonders if his racing heart and horny aura have somehow given her the vibe that he's jonesing for some coke, and hovers in the basement hall to text her back.

**12:14 a.m, rich:** not deunk enougj to make THAT kind of mistake don't worrk

**12:14 a.m, rich:** wouldnt ecen know who to ask. Plus eddie

**12:15 a.m, bev:** glad to hear but not what i meant 

**12:15 a.m, bev:** you know i usually let you live in ur little world of denial

**12:15 a.m, bev:** but you look ready to maul eds face off and i mean woof

**12:16 a.m, bev:** so as ur friend i must regrettably say that if that’s not something you’re ready to deal with in the morning i suggest you pump the breaks a little 

**12:16 a.m, rich:** woof YOU

**12:16 a.m, rich:** UR woof

He puts his phone on Do Not Disturb and heads back upstairs. 

Eddie’s eyes follow him across the floor, a smile creeping slowly over his face as Richie approaches, drunk and sweet and unabashed. For a second Richie lets himself imagine it: leaning over the table and kissing that grin right off Eddie’s lips, guilty as fucking charged, status quo be damned, thank you very much Miss Marsh - but then he thinks about Tomorrow Morning, then Next Week, and he lets the second pass. When he reclaims his seat he carefully leaves a berth of space between them. Unfortunately the bar has not gotten any quieter, and Eddie leans right into him again, a little wobbly in his seat.  _ Oh boy _ , Richie thinks.  _ He’s drunk. _

He’s procured another round for them, to which he gestures.

“I got you the same,” he says, breath on Richie’s cheek. 

“Trying to get me drunk, are you, you little minx?” Richie asks, attempting the British guy, his mouth working much quicker than his brain. He regrets it immediately, regrets the way Eddie's gaze flicks knowingly across his face, regrets the heat in his cheeks. Fake flirting with Eddie when sober:  _ okay, maybe. _ Fake flirting with Eddie while drunkenly thinking about kissing him in a bar:  _ not okay, Richie, obviously, you terminal dipshit _ . 

Eddie laughs, though, and his eyes continue to roam Richie’s face pointedly. 

“It doesn’t look like I had to try very hard,” he says, his smile twisting itself into an even sweeter little smirk. 

Richie pretends to be offended, a ploy to hide his embarrassment, his hand fanned out over his chest flamboyantly. “I am not that drunk!” he says. He thinks about Beverly and tries again to put a little bit of space between their chairs. Eddie watches him fidget, smirking still. 

“Are you a lightweight now?” His hand settles once more on Richie's arm, keeping him from moving any further. "After all that boasting in high school, all that vodka chugging, you’ve been reduced to this? Pathetic.”

“Getting drunk after six beers is not being a  _ lightweight, _ ” Richie bites back, ignoring the way his pulse is spiking. “That’s a normal weight. Average weight. You’re the lightweight.”

“How so?” Eddie counters. “I’m matching you beer for beer! And you are definitely way more drunk than me right now.”

“Am not.”

"You are too."

"No, I'm not."

“You are -” Eddie breaks off with a laugh, shaking his head. His hair bounces around, fluffy and light, as he does. Richie wants to put his hands in it. “Okay. How about we’re equal weight, equal drunk?”

Richie pretends to think about it, leaning out from the table to take in Eddie’s full figure in an obvious way. He’s dressed like a fucking prep, just like he always is, in a pair of dark cuffed trousers and a pale polo shirt stretched across his slim shoulders, the cuffs of his sleeves taught around his surprisingly toned biceps. Richie acts like he has not observed this fact, reminding himself again about the inevitabilities of Tomorrow Morning.

“Definitely not equal weight,” Richie says. “I could lift you right off the ground.”

In fact he  _ can  _ and he  _ has, _ on multiple occasions, and he’s about to point this out when he meets Eddie’s gaze and the words die in his throat. There’s something in Eddie’s face that has his mouth snapping shut, something dangerously akin to the feeling that has been eating at Richie's insides for the last hour. Richie is caught like a deer in headlights, his brain stuttering to a halt, incapable of thought while Eddie looks at him  _ that  _ way with  _ those  _ eyes.

They stay trapped in that moment for what seems like an impossible amount of time, as all the air is slowly squeezed out of Richie’s lungs, until Eddie finally looks away and removes his hand from Richie’s arm, reaching for his beer. Richie mirrors him, lifting his glass to his mouth even as he's thinking  _ Oh boy. I am very drunk _ . 

“Fuck off, no you couldn't,” Eddie mutters over the rim of his own glass, eyes still averted. 

The next two beers take them from whatever the fuck level of drunk they are on before and into drunk and disorderly. It's at this point that Richie begins to lose track of things for real; they start talking shit, naturally, and wind up having an argument about a Spiderman comic book from 1992 which evolves into a bit of a screaming match as they try to talk over one another at increasingly inappropriate volumes. Richie inadvertently alludes to Eddie’s birthday present and then backtracks clumsily while hoping Eddie didn’t notice. He embraces the sloppiness feeling, the drunkenness, eager to escape the earlier  _ whatever the fuck _ and double down into their practised dynamic, this teasing yelling tug-of-war they've been playing since forever.

By the time they leave the tap room has almost entirely cleared out. The bartender seems annoyed while they close their tab, so Richie tips like he’s got capital-M-Money as Eddie calls a Lyft to get them, veto-ing the subway without discussion. Sleep begins creeping up on them as they climb into the back seat, and they ride towards Richie's place in near total silence. Eddie is looking out the window, the orange light from the night lamps moving over his face as the streets pass by. Richie watches the side of his face for a few minutes, then finds his eye drawn down the length of his arm to the place where his hand is resting on the seat between them.

When they were kids, young kids, they’d held hands all the time. Richie's legs had always been too long, and it had started as a system of necessity, whereby they could pace one another naturally - so that Richie didn't pull too far ahead of the pack, and Eddie didn't fall too far back. Richie’d enjoyed it; he’d always been a physically affectionate person. He’d held hands with Stan and Bill, too, sometimes, but Eddie had always been the most in need of being dragged along, always falling behind, always slightly too far away by Richie’s standards. He’d been Richie’s main hand-holding partner for a time, until adults had begun to look at them strangely. Until the day Eddie's mom had told him that boys weren't meant to hold hands like girls could, or like boys and girls could, and Eddie started pulling out of his grasp. He wishes he could remember the last time Eddie let him, before that, wishes that he’d known it was special before it was taken away. 

_ It’d be twenty years ago, _ he thinks.  _ Hard to believe. Same boy. Same life.  _

He stares at Eddie's fingers, peeking out from beneath his sleeve, and remembers how the pulling away had hurt - how it had made him hold on tighter, gripping stubbornly until Eddie got genuinely upset with him. Then had begun the new era: tussles and pokes and pinches, all boy-approved. Wrestling, noogies, shoves. Dunking contests. Eddie had been upset with the prodding and teasing, too, but it had been different. He’d always given just as good as he got. It was the tug and the pull. Richie had always thought that Eddie understood what he was really trying to say. 

In a moment of indeterminate defiance, perhaps against the passage of time, or Sonia Kaspbrak, or maybe even Eddie himself, Richie reaches out and slips his hand into Eddie's.

"'Member when we used to play in that corn field behind the Denbrough place?" He says, when Eddie glances over at him. 

"Mm," Eddie hums. His hand curls around Richie's, palms pressed together. "What about it?"

"I don't know," Richie says. "I was just thinking about it."

He had used that corn field to hide out, even up until high school. He could sit in there, smoking or reading, sometimes with his friends but usually alone, and remain unseen by the world. Richie likes to think about that corn field. 

Eddie hums again, not forming words this time. He turns back to the window.

“Mike grew up on a farm, you know,” Richie says mildly, after a long minute. 

Eddie nods towards the window. Richie thinks his eyes might be closed. “I know. He had sheep. He told me in the summertime.”

Richie laughs, though he’s not sure why. He leans his head back, closing his eyes as well. Eddie’s hand is bigger than it used to be, but his skin’s still baby soft. Richie runs the pad of his thumb over the inside of Eddie’s wrist, again and again, grinning at the thought.

"I fucking hate corn," Eddie says.

"What did the corn ever do to you?" Richie says, then fakes a dramatic gasp. "Don't tell me it pressured you into corn-ography."  


Eddie makes a sound like a snort, and Richie's head lolls to the side. He peers at Eddie through the dark. He’s smiling the kind of smile that he smiles when he thinks Richie has made a very dumb joke and he is trying not to smile.

"That's not funny," Eddie mumbles, lying. “The corn made me feel short. Tastes stupid.”

Richie snickers. "Tell me one thing that doesn't make you feel short, Eduardo."

Eddie meets his gaze again, rolling his head so they're facing each other, already laughing before he responds. "Bill."

They both crack up, giggling in fits for the rest of the drive. Richie doesn't remember letting go of Eddie's hand, or getting out of the car, and has only brief awareness of stumbling through shoe removal. They have the barest presence of mind to be quiet for Stanley’s benefit as they make their way through the kitchen and into his room, where they crash hard and immediately onto opposite sides of his queen mattress, still dressed.

xxxx

In the morning Richie is in a world of hurt. He clings to unconsciousness for as long as possible, rolling over and over under his duvet each time he wakes up, willing himself back to sleep. He’d shucked off his pants some time in the night, and they lay tangled at his feet depressingly.

Eventually his bladder won't be ignored any longer and he must drag himself upright, feeling absolutely miserable and very much like he's about to die. His glasses are folded on his bedside table, next to them a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol that Richie is certain he didn’t leave there. 

Eddie's long gone. 

Richie takes three Tylenol and reaches for his glasses. He pushes them on his face, then pulls them off again when the world slides into focus and his headache sharpens acutely. He trips out of his room with a hand pressed over his eyes, moving through his apartment like the living dead. 

Stan's book are spread out on the table when Richie passes, but he himself is nowhere to be seen. On the journey to the bathroom nausea kicks out the bottom of Richie’s stomach, and when he arrives he drops to his knees unceremoniously to puke, hoping that Stanley is out of the house. He has no class on Mondays, but sometimes he runs errands in the afternoon - Richie prays that's where he is now. The walls of their apartment are certainly not thick enough to muffle the sound of him heaving up all of the nothing he’d had for dinner the day before.

The familiar misery of staring into the bottom of a toilet bowl is enough to spur Richie’s anxiety into overdrive. He’s not been this hungover in a long time, not since the throes of his bartending days when he could simply cure his ills with some hair of the dog and a little bump. His body convulses with the effort of heaving bile up his throat, tears streaming down his cheeks, and he hopes he doesn’t pop a blood vessel. It’s happened before, and it was disturbing to look in the mirror for weeks afterwards. He flushes and thinks that if Stanley can hear him then he's probably got more than a few thoughts about what Richie got up to last night, and the idea of Stanley doubting him makes Richie more deeply upset than the possibility of popping a blood vessel.

When he’s able to stand for more than a minute he takes himself to the back porch and smokes a hurried toke off the bong in the freezing cold, his head pounding, cutting the nausea the best way he can. Through the window he sees Stan enter the kitchen from the livingroom and move over to the toaster, meeting Richie’s eye through the glass. There is a deep frown fixed upon his face. Richie feels his heart twang with desperate misery in his chest and hurries indoors, dropping down at the table and putting his head in his arms on top of Stanley’s books. He’s probably still going to throw up again. 

He can feel the weight of Stan’s gaze on the top of his head. He ignores it, focusing on his breathing as he experiences an ungodly head rush and a new wave of nausea. A few minutes later there is the sound of the toaster popping, then a gentle  _ clink  _ as Stanley sets a plate down in front of him. He takes a seat across from Richie, the weight of his gaze unlifting. 

“Just beer, I promise,” Richie says to the tabletop. “I had way too much to drink on an empty stomach.”

“You don't have to defend yourself.” Stan says without hesitation. “I didn't think you'd been doing blow with Eddie.”

Richie glances up, immensely relieved, and picks a piece of dry toast off of his plate. Better to have something in his stomach if he’s going to throw up. The blurry shape of Stan at the other end of the table is still looking at him, and Richie gets the impression he's being studied.

"He left pretty early," Stan says after a long moment. 

“He’s got class,” Richie says, around a pitifully small and dry bite. He doesn’t want to think about Eddie, right now. Relieved as he is by Stan’s confidence in his ongoing though relative sobriety, there is a new pit of dread in his stomach that is growing heavier the longer that Stanley looks at him. The conversation they  _ didn’t  _ have on Friday sits unacknowledged between them, and Richie keeps remembering breathless flashes of the night before, huddled  _ much  _ too close and being  _ much  _ too obvious, the feeling of giddyness that he’d carried through the night now melted into pure embarrassment.

Stan watches him while he chews. Richie knows that Stan knows that Eddie doesn’t have class until 5 today. He doesn’t say anything more about it. 

“Get off my books,” he says, instead. 

Unable to stomach being in his sickly-drunk-smelling room any longer, Richie relocates to the couch with his duvet and spends the rest of the afternoon sleeping and eating bananas then puking them up in intervals, drinking water and doing his best not to think about the night before. 

Eventually he’s awake, staying awake, slightly less nauseous, and capable of keeping down the third plate of toast Stan makes for him. Richie has to beg for each one after the first, but Stan is merciful. He refills Richie’s water bottle each time it’s emptied without needing to be asked. When Richie puts  _ Bojack  _ on the T.V, he keeps the volume low out of thankfulness and respect.

Around 5 p.m Richie finds his glasses and fishes phone out of his jeans pocket. It’s dead, which is a little bit of a relief, and he puts it on the charger to wait another hour in blissful, cowardly Offline Mode before he actually turns it on. As it boots up it buzzes for a minute solid in his hand, receiving a night and a day’s worth of messages. 

He pulls up Bev’s twelve unanswered texts first, reading back in their chat log to re-discover the conversation they’d had the night before. He has only foggy memories of her leaving the bar, and when sees her warning the coil of nerves in his stomach twists. 

**12:15 a.m, bev:** you know i usually let u live in ur little world of denial

**12:15 a.m, bev:** but you look ready to maul Eds face off and i mean woof

**12:16 a.m, bev:** so as ur friend i must regrettably say that if that’s not something you’re ready to deal with in the morning you need to sloooow down

**12:16 a.m, rich:** woof YOU

**12:16 a.m, rich:** UR woof

**6:04 p.m, bev:** okay well don’t come crying to me if you suck his tongue out of his mouth and freak out about it tomorrow morning

**6:04 p.m, bev:** text me when you get home

**6:04 p.m, bev:** i’m home now

**6:04 p.m, bev:** if you fuck eddie in a bar bathroom i think i’ll be obligated to tell bill jsyk

**6:04 p.m, bev:** okay ig you’re BUSY

**6:04 p.m, bev:** text me tmrw

**6:04 p.m, bev:** don’t do anything you’re going to regret 

**6:04 p.m, bev:** good morning!!! Are you alive

**6:04 p.m, bev:** rich

**6:04 p.m, bev:** richie

**6:04 p.m, bev:** oh my god did you guys actually fuck ed’s being so weird

**6:04 p.m, bev:** stan tells me ur alive now RESPOND 

He bites the bullet and taps out a response, ignoring the group chat and two unanswered texts from Eddie. 

**6:05 p.m, rich:** no we didn’t fuck jesus bev relax 

**6:07 p.m, bev:** RICHARD

**6:07 p.m, rich:** stop yelling at me I’ve been suffering all day

**6:08 p.m, bev:** you and eddie both

**6:08 p.m, bev:** rip but i fucking told you so

**6:08 p.m, rich:** i am. So stupid

**6:10 p.m, bev:** what happened???

**6:12 p.m, rich:** a million beers on popcorn and twizzlers for dinner

**6:14 p.m, rich:** i want to literally Die

**6:17 p.m, bev:** we should have had real food 

**6:17 p.m, bev:** what happened w eddie

That was the question that had been rattling around in Richie's cranium all afternoon, the source of the anxiety he’s trying so hard to ignore - what had he done? Why did Eddie leave so early? Why does he feel consumed by embarrassment? What’s the reasoning for the mortification wrapped like a vice around his chest? 

As far as his chopped memory has revealed so far, it’s no more than a case of general post-blackout anxiety, with which he is more than familiar. All afternoon he had ventured again and again into the spacey void of last night, reaching for something concrete and coming up with nothing every time - except the feeling Eddie tucked up against him at the table and how badly he’d  _ wanted _ . 

But there was no press of lips stored in his memory banks. No fumbles into pants, nothing even remotely sexy except the  _ looks _ . The hands. 

**6:20 p.m, rich:** nothing

**6:22 p.m, bev:** Richard please.

**6:25 p.m, rich:** Beverly fuckin Marsh

**6:25 p.m, rich:** nothing “happened” with eddie

**6:26 p.m, rich:** we just got wasted and came home and crashed

**6:27 p.m, bev:** don’t put those scare quotes at me like you don’t know what i’m talking about

**6:27 p.m, bev:** you were ready to lay him out on the table when I left, tell me I’m wrong

**6:28 p.m, rich:** i was v drunk man

**6:28 p.m, rich:** eddie is Eddie, thats just not gonna happen

**6:29 p.m, rich:** I used my SELF CONTROL

**6:29 p.m, rich:** u know like you told me to?? In case you forgot

**6:29 p.m, rich:** aren’t you proud

**6:38 p.m, bev:** actually, I am going to kill you and then him and then myself if I have to bear witness to that level of thirst ever again

**6:39 p.m, rich:** ok wow??? what the fuck crawled up your snatch did you really have that bad of a time?

**6:41 p.m, bev:** Okay sorry no it was fine I had a good time

**6:50 p.m, bev:** can we just Acknowledge it though

**6:55 p.m, rich:** richie got way too drunk: Acknowledged.

**6:55 p.m, rich:** beverly’s making a huge deal about nothing: Acknowledged. 

**6:55 p.m, rich:** may we move on now

**6:58 p.m, bev:** sure thing dick whatever you say

He can tell that Beverly hasn’t got what she wanted, but he's not interested in picking up whatever she’s looking to drop off so he stops responding to her. Instead he scrolls through a days worth of Stan, Mike, and Bill discussing meat braising techniques in the group chat while fighting with another foggy memory of the night before.

_ Mike grew up on a farm. _

_ I know. He had sheep.  _

He’d held Eddie’s hand in the cab. That's all. He had briefly and drunkenly thought some thoughts that went beyond the scope of friendship, he'd maybe been a little obvious about the fact that he hasn't gotten laid in over a year, but all they'd done was hold hands like little kids. Eddie had been drunk, too, drunk as a skunk and pretty handsy, but then they were always affectionate with one another, the Losers: it was just part of their dynamic, exacerbated by the alcohol. There was nothing to be mortified about, other than the ordeal he's put his body through.

That's what he tells himself as he finally stops ignoring the little red notification icon and opens Eddie's texts. 

**6:04 p.m, eduardo:** sorry i took off i’m literally dying and i need to be home 

**6:04 p.m, eduardo:** hope you feel better than i do when you get up lol

**7:04 p.m, rich:** no worries this was definitely a hangover for Stan's eyes only lololol

**7:04 p.m, rich:** did you make it to class

**7:04 p.m, eduardo:** funny joke 

**7:05 p.m, eduardo:** no. I puked every three minutes between the hours of 11 and 4, so i took the evening off. 

Richie reads his text and feels, ridiculously, hot tears pricking the back of his eyes.

Eddie hates throwing up more than almost anything - whenever he'd puked as a kid, he'd hurtle immediately into hysterics and would need to use his fake inhaler, crying about his mom and hospital visits until he could be calmed down. The stomach flu had once decimated half their class in a single week, Richie and Bill among the unfortunate victims, and Eddie had lived in terror of catching even the smallest cough for  _ years  _ afterwards. He hates puking the same way Bill hates public speaking, even now, and the way that Stan can’t stand to be the center of attention. There are fears built so deep that they’re almost impossible to shake. 

It’s his mom’s fault, for sure, and since he's been away from her things have only been getting better for him, but Richie is very aware of how much Eddie hates puking and he thought of Eddie suffering through the same hangover that he has fills him with a helpless sorrow. Because, he tells himself rationally, he is dehydrated and frayed and sizzling with anxiety. 

**7:05 p.m, rich:** woof :( 

**7:05 p.m, rich:** sorry eds 

**7:05 p.m, rich:** i know how much you hate dat :-(

**7:06 p.m, eduardo:** I feel ok now

**7:06 p.m, eduardo:** don't be sorry

**7:06 p.m, eduardo:** it’s not your fault

**7:07 p.m, eduardo:** you didn’t hold me at gunpoint and MAKE me drink that much

Richie is debating the virtue of many replies, like perhaps pointing out that the entire night had been Richie's idea and so it  _ was _ Richie’s fault, or maybe attempting an assassination joke with the gunpoint lead-in, when Eddie texts again.

**7:10 p.m, eduardo:** anyways, I vaguely remember having a good time so I guess it was worth it

Richie squeezes his eyes shut, teetering ever closer to the brink of hysteria. He's overwhelmed, suddenly, by the memory of Eddie's fingers on his arm, and then Eddie's warm eyes. In the kitchen, Stan turns the page of one of his bird books. Richie thinks of typing  _ I always have a good time with you, eddie my love,  _ or  _ we totally almost made out, right? _

He does neither. 

**7:12 p.m, rich:** i am flattered but this hangover isn’t worth anything in the world. i am in misery

**7:18 p.m, eduardo:** ain't nobody who can comfort me

**7:18 p.m, eduardo:** why won't you answer me

**7:18 p.m, eduardo:** the silence js slowly killin meee

**7:20 p.m, rich:** I truly blame you for the fact that I even know maroon 5 exists. tragic for me

**7:21 p.m, eduardo:** okay well you listened to the radio all the time when you had your car so that's just not true

**7:21 p.m, eduardo:** you liked moves like jagger, which is objectively the worst Maroon 5 song

**7:21 p.m, rich:** I only liked it because you liked it

**7:22 p.m, eduardo:** not true richie you fucking liar even I don’t like post 2004 Maroon 5 and you spent all of junior year whistling that fucking riff

**7:22 p.m, eduardo:** BADLY

**7:22 p.m, eduardo:** you cannot say i made you do that when i asked you to stop every day

**7:23 p.m, rich:** but you did made me do that, by asking me to stop every day

Stan’s head snaps up sharply when Richie's phone rings, and Richie snorts at the incoming call display despite himself.

"Please don't yell, Spaghetti," he answers. "I died multiple times today, you are obligated by the laws and codes of social honour to be kind to me." 

"If you think I have the energy to yell then you've seriously underestimated my hangover."

Eddie's voice is rough, but it soothes like balm over Richie’s nerves, the tight knot of anxiety in his stomach untangling itself at last. He’s struck by the sudden urge to get up and leave the room, or to pace, as he usually does on the phone, but doesn’t have the wherewithal. Instead he settles deeper into his couch cocoon, shifting and fidgeting. Stan is still watching him, hawk-like, from the kitchen table. Richie holds the phone away from his face.

"I might be blind but I'm not that blind, Staniel, I can fucking see you. Give a lady a little privacy." 

Stan sighs, loud enough to be deliberate and pointed, and looks back down at his work. 

"What was that?" Eddie is saying on the other end of the phone.

"Stan misses you, I think," Richie tells him. "He was peeking pretty keenly in our direction. Staring at me, I mean." 

"What does he want?" 

"I don't know."

"Well, tell him I say hi."

"No."

"Richie! Just tell him."

Richie sighs and holds the receiver away from his face again. "Eddie says hi!" 

“Hello, Eddie,” Stan says, without looking up. “Glad to hear you’re alive and well.”

Richie rolls his eyes and tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear, shuffling around so that he’s not looking in Stan’s direction anymore.

“Stan says he’s glad you’re alive,” Richie says into the receiver. Eddie huffs a laugh.

“Yeah, just barely. Tell him thanks for -”

“Eduardo, if you wanted to talk to Stanley you know you could have called him on his phone, right?”

“That’s not my name,” Eddie snips, but Richie knows it’s just a reflex. The ship has long sailed when it comes to Richie's rampant pet names. Eddie hums like he’s deliberating. “I don’t  _ not  _ want to talk to Stanley.”

“Alright then, like I said, you called the wrong phone.”

“I’m busy,” Stan says from the kitchen. “Tell him I can’t talk right now.”

“I’m not telling anyone anything,” Richie says over his shoulder. “Do I look like one of your messenger pigeons?”

“What?” Eddie asks. “What did he say?”

“What did  _ I _ just say, Eds? I am mere seconds away from hanging up on you.”

“That’s not nice!” Eddie proclaims, petulant. “And here I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Richie’s mouth stops in the middle of forming a word, but he recovers quickly.  _ This is banter,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Eddie’s funny. Ha ha.  _

“Which one, love?” He asks finally, as the British guy. “This voice?”

Eddie groans. “No, not the British guy. I don’t get along with him.”

“What about this one, mate? You call for me?” Richie does his Terrible-On-Purpose Australian, one which always seems gets a good rise out of Eddie. Today is no exception. Eddie lets loose a short huff of laughter, and Richie switches tracks to the prissy, uptight voice that he pretends to think sounds  _ just like  _ Stanley. “Hello? Tozier-Uris residence, Stick-up-my-ass-Stan speaking.”

He hears a book closing and the sound of chair legs scraping against the kitchen tile. 

“ _ You’re  _ the one who sticks it up your ass,” Stan mutters, without any real venom, as he crosses the hall to his room. Richie flips him off as he shuts his door.

Eddie is trying not to laugh outright at the crude impression of Stan. “Oh, sorry, Stan, I actually called to speak to Richie.”

“Oh, hey,” Richie drops the Voices and leans back. “What’s up?”

Eddie pauses. There’s a rustling on his end of the line, and Richie can imagine him in a similar position to his own, nestled miserably in his own blanket nest and avoiding his roommates like the plague. 

“I just wanted to talk,” Eddie says after a moment. “I’ve been holed up in my room all day, I need human interaction.”

"What, Beefcakes number one and two haven't been doting on you? They’re not bringing you dry toast like my Stanley does?" 

" _ God,  _ no," Eddie says. "Stanley’s an angel, I had to make my own fucking toast. I think they heard me throwing up and literally ran away, I haven’t heard a peep all day. Either that or they're being suspiciously respectful."

"I doubt that," Richie says. "If you can't hear them screaming at their laptops then they're probably not within a hundred yards."

"They're not  _ that _ bad," Eddie says, though he's laughing. 

When Richie moved to New York, Eddie’s second room had been occupied by a fine lesbian couple, Judith and Emilie, who Richie grew quite fond of in the time before they decided to elope and move out of the city to some place more affordable. Since then, Eddie has been living with a pair of loud Slavic brothers, the pair of whom are intent on spending every moment they aren’t at the gym talking about Twitch live streamers who play boring shit like FIFA 11. They’re somehow the first people post-Judith-and-Emelie who were able to pass Eddie’s rigorous roommate vetting system, and they’re so delightfully antithetical to Eddie that Richie really can’t help but poke fun at their entire existence, as well as Eddie’s system. Eddie lets him get away with it, despite the strict neutrality that he enforces when it comes to the keeping his house, as long as he doesn’t get too mean or too pointed. 

Privately Richie thinks that the vetting system would be better if Eddie had a box on his checklist labelled  _ “cares enough to bring me toast when I’m sick” _ , but knows that would impede on Eddie’s campaign to not let another human being take care of him ever again in his life, so he doesn’t mention it. 

They stay on the phone for two hours, and as Eddie laughs and chatters tiredly into his ear all of the remaining tension in Richie’s chest dissolves. They don’t talk about the bar. Having remembered that he almost spilled the beans the night before, Richie brings up Eddie’s birthday party and makes a few pointed comments about gift giving in order to make sure nothing’s been given away. He gets the answer that he wants and then quickly switches lanes when Eddie starts to needle him for clues, diverting by bringing up the fact that Bill has agreed to come for Christmas, and gently laying on the peer pressure. If it worked for Bill, he thinks, it may yet work on Eddie.

Eddie responds with predictably dramatic despondence, insisting that his mother will wear him as a skin suit if he so much as  _ hints _ that he won’t be there for his Aunt Ruth’s Annual Christmas Party. It’s the same shit every year, Richie reminds him, but is forced to drop the topic when Eddie threatens to hang up.

At some point during their conversation about Christmas, Stan re-enters the living room with his copy of  _ Watchmen  _ and sits down to read in the fat chair in the corner, his legs tucked beneath him. Before Richie hangs up forty minutes later, Stan prompts him to invite Eddie for dinner some time later that week, and the three of them make plans. 

When they’re finally saying goodnight, Eddie falters.

"Hey Rich?" 

"Yeah?" 

Eddie takes a deep breath, and Richie hears it rattle. For a moment he thinks about the thousands of ‘asthma’ attacks Eddie had endured as a kid. His anxiety perks its head up once more.

"I…  _ Songs About Jane  _ is a better album than  _ Transatlanticism. _ "

He hangs up as Richie opens his mouth to argue. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes they are millenials yes the argue about maroon 5 and coldplay it's just true


	4. Chapter 4

**iv.**

The next afternoon, Beverly sends him a . _ gif _ of Diane from  _ Bojack Horseman _ saying  _ ‘Okay, we’ll just put that over here on the pile of things we don’t talk about’  _ to which he responds with ten pictures of her at Halloween the year prior, dressed as Todd Chavez and completely wasted. Richie went as Sober Bojack. Barely anyone at her company Halloween party got it. 

He opens the cafe five days in a row, generally passing in a blur of regular conversation with regular customers;  _ Hi how are you I'm good thanks what can we get started for you today is two percent milk okay alright awesome have a good day awesome thanks you too,  _ and whatever the flavour of the day is for chit-chat. Serving coffee isn’t rocket science, but it takes a certain type of personality to do it full-time and enjoy it; Richie is constantly moving, constantly talking, and constantly thinking five minutes ahead. It suits him perfectly. He makes people feel comfortable, and he’s good at the kinds of low-stakes responsibilities that make up a career in coffee service. There’s a set of regular customers at  _ Frontier _ , people who come in consistently every day or two, and they are generally kind and respectful. Ben comes in most afternoons and is by far Richie’s favourite, but he’s gotten to know them all to varying degrees, and they him. For the most part, his regulars think he’s funny and knowledgeable, and the validation of people liking him is more than enough to keep his motors running on a day-to-day basis. 

This week, however, he gets very tired of himself very quickly. He spends most of the week distracted and burnt out.

Beverly doesn’t bring up their little bar excursion again, and Stan hasn’t said a word about it either, seeming to have taken Richie’s warning to heart, but Richie finds with increasing dismay that he’s having a very hard time putting it from his mind. In the mornings he opens the store alone, with nothing to distract him from his thoughts until the morning rush between eight and nine a.m - which leaves no less than two hours of Super Fun Brain Time. Even with music blaring his mind has a tendency to wander, and he can’t stop himself pouring over every detail of the weekend. These ruminations always land him somewhere in the vicinity of Eddie. 

__ It strikes him at the oddest times - an order for ginger tea reminds him of Eddie and thinking of Eddie reminds him of the last time he saw Eddie and then he has to actively shoo himself away from the memories once more. It would be okay if the only his thoughts of Eddie were the normal, acceptable ones about what class he would be in right now or when Richie would see him next or whether he’d be pissed about Richie eating just one croissant for lunch again or  _ whatever _ , but unfortunately Richie's traitor mind keeps finding a way to turn him back to the -

_ lips. The eyes. The soft skin of his wrist. Big, brown eyes. I could lift you right off the ground.  _ And that he can’t stop the thoughts only makes him think about  _ it,  _ the  _ wanting _ , more. He tamps it down firmly, refusing to acknowledge it. It’s a bad idea, he reminds himself, just like it’s always been a bad idea.

Eddie stops by  _ Frontier  _ on Thursday afternoon after his classes, like he does most weeks. Richie is distracted for most of the morning, anticipating his arrival and hating that he is anticipating it so much at the same time. The snow has not eased up all weekend, and Richie feels some kind of way about Eddie’s hatless head the moment he lays eyes on his friend through the front window. There are other feelings swirling around in there, too, as Eddie steps in from the cold and greets him with a smile from the doorway. 

_ Get it together, Tozier, you know better.  _

Fortunately Eddie doesn’t notice anything off in Richie’s demeanor as he idles at the counter recounting all the details of his subway ride over. Also fortunately, having Eddie in front of him rant for twenty minutes about the New York Subway system drains all the sexy thoughts from Richie’s mind. While he’s still going over his commute a windswept couple comes in and sits at the last empty table in the shop.

“Goddamn it, fuck,” Eddie swears, not nearly quiet enough to go unheard. The couple glances up guiltily and Richie offers them a Customer Service Smile. “I have to actually study today, I can’t sit at the counter. I’ll be too distracted.”

“Grab a seat with Haystack,” Richie suggests, nodding at Ben where he is stooped over his computer in the corner, headphones in. “There’s room enough for two laptops. Introduce yourself so he knows you by more than your itty bitty body.”

“Fuck off, giraffe boy.” Eddie’s mouth presses into a line, and he glances in Ben’s direction shiftily. “That depends on whether you’ve told him any more rumours about me.”

“It’s not a _rumour_ if it’s something you literally said out loud in my company, Eds." Richie says, rolling his eyes. “That’s just regular gossip. And I haven’t mentioned you at all since. You may be cute, but I’m not in the habit of just, like, talking about you all day, every day.” _What, Richie?_ He thinks. _What was that?_ “Why don’t you pull your panties out of your crack and go tell him how much you love his Prada bag.”

Eddie makes a face at him, pulls his own bag off the counter, swings it over his shoulder, and moves towards Ben without making an order at all. Richie watches him go, feeling apprehensive. When the couple comes to the counter, Richie smiles wide and waxy. 

xxxx

On Friday, Eddie and Beverly both come over for dinner. 

Gathering the Derry crew under one roof generally makes Richie feel at ease, suffused with a bone-deep kind of relief that he can't quite articulate - but this week he feels an odd energy in the room with them. As soon as Beverly and Eddie are through the door Stan asks Beverly for help with a pair of jeans he needs patched up and they disappear into his room, where they stand by his closet talking in hushed voices for the better part of ten minutes. After seeing Eddie the day before, Richie’s mind had eased up a little on the constant circling of Sunday night, but for some reason being alone with him in his own living room makes him feel like a wild animal. He turns his personality up to ten as they settle in the living room to compensate for any lingering awkwardness. 

When Stan and Beverly have been gone for five minutes, Richie catches Eddie looking at Stan’s slightly ajar bedroom door, and they make confused eye contact. Richie looks at the door and then at Eddie again, who looks disbelievingly back. 

_ Are they…?  _ Richie mouths, then makes some explicit hand signals. Eddie’s eyes widen, a look of horror coming over him and his shoulders coming up in an  _ I-don’t-know _ motion. They glance as one back at Stan’s bedroom door and crack up, stifling laughter behind their hands. Stan and Bev reappear a few minutes later, looking altogether unruffled and completely unfucked, and Richie and Eddie both crack up again. Stan looks between them suspiciously, but says nothing.

“Hey,” Beverly says, not bothered by their antics.

“Hello, there,” Richie says, his laugh dying off but his grin remaining. “How was your day, Big Red?”

“Don’t call me that, it makes me sound like Clifford the Dog,” she says, removing her shoes and dropping into the corner chair heavily. Stan moves to the kitchen with his phone in his hands. “My day was okay. Work was boring. How was your day, Trashmouth?”

“Average, also just work.” Richie says. He tries to meet Eddie’s gaze, but Eddie is looking at Stan’s back. He turns his attention back to Bev, who’s eyes never left him. “Ben told me to tell you -” he clears his throat dramatically and tries to affect Ben's Voice - “Hi.”

“Me, specifically?” Beverly asks, surprised. 

“Well, he saw Stan two days ago and Eddie yesterday, so yes. Just you is the recipient of that poetic and honestly slightly erotic correspondence.”

“ _ O- _ kay, Rich,” Beverly says, rolling her eyes. “You can tell him hi right back.”

“Why don’t you come by and tell him yourself?” Richie asks. “I’m sure he would just about die if you asked to share his table.”

“I invited him to my birthday.” Eddie says, and Richie does manage to meet his eye this time, quirking an eyebrow as he does so. Eddie shrugs. “When I sat with him yesterday we got to talking and I mentioned my birthday was coming up. I didn’t want him to feel  _ not  _ invited and I could tell he wasn’t going to ask, so I invited him. What, is it not okay for me to invite people to my own birthday?”

Richie opens his mouth to ask Eddie if he’d brought up the Prada bag, but Stan cuts him off. 

“You can invite whoever you want to your birthday party, Eddie.” Stan says, leaning against the doorframe between the kitchen and the living room. He holds up his phone. “Food’s here.”

“Is that what you guys were doing in your room?” Eddie asks. “Ordering for us?”

“No,” Beverly looks at him, confused. “We were looking at a pair of jeans.”

“We ordered like twenty minutes before you got here, to save time.” Richie tells them.

“Why do we have to save time?” Eddie asks. “ Are we going somewhere?”

“We were hungry,” Stan says.

“Is that how dinner dates work, now? How do you know what I want, Stan, huh? What did you get me?”

“I think I could accurately guess your _dietary preferences,_ Eddie, having known you your literal entire life.” Stan says. “But actually, Richie ordered while I was in the shower.”

Eddie turns narrowed eyes to Richie. “What’d  _ you _ get me?”

“You know, if we invited you for dinner and actually, like, cooked, I hope you wouldn’t behave this way.”

“If you ordered me a salad I swear to God I’ll lose it, Rich, I need  _ meat. _ What did you get?”

“Chinese, from the spot down the street.” Richie says. “The Oriental Opal, or something equally yikes. I got a bunch of shit, there will be stuff you like, trust me. If there isn’t I will Uber Eats you, specifically, whatever you want.”

“And what if we didn’t want Chinese?” Beverly asks, crossing her ankles in front of her as Eddie rolls his eyes. The smile playing at her lips tells Richie that she’s only egging him on. 

Richie pretends to think about it. “Then go home, and I will eat your share of tasty, tasty chicken balls.” There’s a knock at the door, and Richie stands to accept their food from the delivery guy as Eddie makes a face.

“Are they actual chicken testicles, do you think?”

“No, they’re not actual testicles,” Stan says, making an incredulous face back at him, “they’re just little  _ balls _ of deep fried chicken breast.”

“I highly doubt it’s pure breast. It’s probably, like, the unsellable parts.”

“Yum,” Beverly intones. 

“I guess you’ll be staying, then,” Richie says, crossing back to the kitchen with the goods. 

He begins unloading large takeout containers from the paper delivery bag and onto the table. A moment later Eddie gets up and joins him in the kitchen to fetch plates and cutlery. Stan and Beverly stay where they are, and when Richie glances over to tell them to get moving he catches them sharing a look that he doesn’t think has anything to do with jeans. 

When Stan realizes that Richie can see them, he gets up and starts ripping paper towel lengths for napkins, laying them out carefully in a pile on the table.  He won’t meet Richie’s eye, and Richie doesn’t want to think about what exactly he’s missing here - but he gets the distinct feeling that Bill and Stan might not be the only ones gossiping about him and Eddie behind his back. His cheeks heat up as memories of last Sunday, and Beverly’s reaction, start to bleed into his brain once more.

They load up their plates, and after Richie goads both Beverly and Eddie into rescinding their criticisms they pile into the living room again to watch  _ Fargo  _ while they eat. Richie doesn’t love the show, finds it dull and hard to follow, but Stan and Beverly are obsessed, and Stan is not afraid to wield the fact that he pays for their Crave account like a weapon, using his trump card often and with glee. 

Beverly sprawls over the loveseat like ragdoll, somehow avoiding spilling any fried rice off her plate, and refuses to meet Richie’s eye or budge up. Stan takes his seat in the corner chair. Which leaves Richie to share the couch with Eddie, who plops onto one end and balances his plate on his legs, only half paying attention to the TV screen. He doesn’t seem to be enthralled much by the show, either, and Richie thinks this probably has something to do with the fact that they both have comically short attention spans, the underlying reason they had always relied on each other for entertainment. Today that idea seems daunting. 

Richie takes a seat at the opposite end of the couch, realizing once he’s sat down that he’s conspicuously far away, and distracts himself with his phone. About ten minutes into the episode Eddie's wind chime notification sounds off, and Richie’s phone vibrates in his hand. 

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

**7:26 p.m, Micycle:** Didn’t want to mention it until I had the time off for sure, but if the offer is still open I’d love to come for little Loser’s Christmas! I’m off work Dec 23rd until Jan 3rd.

**7:27 p.m, Big Bill:** me too! :-) 

**7:27 p.m, Big Bill:** _ @Staniel @dipshit  _ got room for both of us?

"Yes!" Richie looks up and meets Stan's eye, grinning. Eddie wiggles around to pull his phone out of his pocket. A moment later Beverly looks up from her own, eyes glinting happily. 

"We can give them your room if you’re okay bunking with me," Richie says to Stan. "Or they can take mine and I'll take the couch? Or we can have one each? Dibs on Mike."

Stanley considers briefly, but his pleased smile tells Richie exactly all that he needs to know. He jiggles excitedly in anticipation of Stan’s response, like a kid waiting for his mom to say yes to a sleepover. He's pointedly avoiding looking down the couch at Eddie, who is visibly upset and visibly trying to keep it off of his face. 

"We'll figure it out," Stan says finally.

**LOSERSCLUBtm**

**Big Bev, Big Bill, dipshit, Micycle, spaghetti, Staniel**

**7:27 p.m, Big Bill:** _ @Staniel @dipshit  _ got room for both of us?

**7:29 p.m, dipshit:** OF COURSE

**7:29 p.m, dipshit:** you can have Stanielle's room!! 

**7:30 p.m, Micycle:** What a generous offer, does Stan know you're giving him the boot? 

**7:30 p.m, Staniel:** My christmas present to the both of you is: not having to sleep in Richie's room

**7:30 p.m, dipshit:** theres nothing wrong with my room but hell yeah hell yeah!

**7:31 p.m, Micycle:** Stan, you are truly the man

**7:31 p.m, Staniel:** It will be a pleasure to host you again Mike! 

**7:31 p.m, Big Bill:** what about me Stan will I be a pleasure to host 

**7:32 p.m, Staniel:** TBD

**7:32 p.m, Big Bill:** You act as though we've never met!

**7:33 p.m, Staniel:** It's just been too long since I’ve been in your presence. Perhaps I remember enjoying your company? Can’t say for sure.

**7:33 p.m, Micycle:** It will be a pleasure to be there! 

**7:33 p.m, Micycle:** Thank you all again for the invite. Going to Florida alone would suck big time

**7:34 p.m, Big Bev:** of course!!

**7:34 p.m, Big Bev:** you are One Of Us

**7:34 p.m, Big Bill:** How could I ever forget the potency of Stan’s bitchiness!? Wow

**7:35 p.m, dipshit:** who’s Big Bill though? Who added a stranger into the chat?

**7:36 p.m, Big Bev:** I think I knew someone by that name in middle school, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only Big B in these parts 

Eddie silences his phone, puts it facedown on the coffee table, and focuses on his plate of Chinese food with such intensity and for so long that Richie is forced to notice. He finds himself caught somewhere between the instinct to protect Eddie from feeling left out, left over from a time when Eddie had to miss every other sleepover because of his mom, and the instinct to lay on the peer pressure in order to get what he wants. 

“Eddie,” he says eventually. 

“I know!” Eddie explodes immediately. “Don’t say it, Richie, I know, I’m the only one who’s not going to be here. I know.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Richie says, unsure whether he is lying or not. 

“Eddie,” Beverly says in a wheedling tone. “Eddie, you’ll be the  _ only one.” _

“I. Know. Beverly.” Eddie spears a piece of broccoli on his plate with every word, still not looking up. When nobody says anything for a moment, he throws his loaded fork down onto his plate and moves it from his knees to the table. “What am I supposed to do? You know how my mom is. If I don’t show up for Christmas, it’s a big fucking deal. I can’t not go.”

“Everything is a big deal to your mom,” Beverly says plainly. Richie holds his tongue, but points at her with a chopstick to signify his agreement. 

“Christmas is _family time_ , it’s like, specifically designated time they have legal control over your existence and you just have to deal with it. Just cause your guys’ families don’t give a fuck doesn’t mean the rest of us - I don’t know why I’m even explaining this to you guys, you know that if I don’t go then she’ll only use it to guilt me for the next one hundred years.”

Stan makes a loud raspberry sound with his mouth at the same time that Richie rolls his eyes. 

“Thicker than the water of the womb, the blood of the covenant is,” Richie says in Yoda voice, then switches to Stuffy British Gentleman when the entire room groans. “My good lad, you cannot be guilted if you refuse to feel shame.”

"Great advice, thanks Rich, I'll just refuse to experience my mother's extremely potent disappointment when she transmits it directly into my fucking brain." 

Richie doesn’t drop the Voice, carrying on with shtick so that he doesn’t have to address the very real spectre of Eddie’s mother’s expectations. "Excellent! You've got the idea, alright, good chap, now take it and run to the racetracks."

Eddie scowls sideways at him. “You know it’s not that easy.” 

Richie shrugs, thinking that it kind of is.

"I can't believe you would rather spend Christmas with your Republican cousins than us," Stan says, laying the disappointment on thick.

"Come on, Stan, not you too," Eddie puts his face in his hands. "You're fucking Jewish, this shouldn't even matter to you. I thought Christmas was just is a made up capitalist holiday that means nothing?"

"Bah, humbug," Stan replies. “You’re just being chickenshit.”

“Fuck you!”

"You're going to have to distance yourself eventually, right?" Beverly asks. "You can’t do this forever. She’s making you go for Thanksgiving  _ and  _ Christmas  _ and  _ Easter, it’s just unreasonable! And it makes you miserable, look at you right now!" 

Eddie removes his hands from his face and waves them through the air above him emphatically as he speaks. "Are all the miles between New York City and Derry not  _ distance?  _ I’m sure I’d have a much easier time if she snapped and stabbed somebody in the leg and got herself thrown in jail, too, Beverly, but we can’t all be so fuckin’ lucky! She still pays my goddamn phone bill, how am I supposed to say no to her?"

Stan scowls deeply in Eddie’s direction for bringing Bev’s father into it, and Richie feels a frown tugging at his own lips, but Beverly just rolls her eyes. 

“Pay your own bills?” Richie suggests. 

“She won’t let me!”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Eds,” Beverly says with finality, plucking the T.V remote off the table and adjusting herself so that she’s facing the screen again. If Richie had said it he’s sure there would be a full blown argument, but Eddie never argues with Beverly the way he does with Richie. She rewinds through the bits of  _ Fargo _ they’d talked over, and Eddie keels over sideways onto the couch with a dramatic groan, filling the space between him and Richie.

What Richie actually wants to say is that Eddie’s mom is a terrible fucking person who doesn’t deserve to spend as much as an hour with her son after all the pain she’s inflicted on him, nevermind all the holidays in a year, but he somehow doesn’t think that Eddie will find that helpful. When Beverly presses play on the television remote, Eddie shifts onto his back and throws his legs over the arm of the couch with a huff, using his arm to cover his face. Richie puts his own phone on silent and pretends to find the show interesting while he eats.

Ten minutes later, when Eddie’s food has gone cold on the table and he still hasn’t sat back up, Richie moves his empty plate away and contemplates his friend. Then he pinches the tender, exposed skin of Eddie’s bicep. Eddie startles with a sound close to a yowl and pulls his arm away.

“Ouch! What the fuck!?”

“You should be happy right now, man,” Richie says. “You’re gonna see Bill and Mike for New Years!” He pauses, reading Eddie’s unhappy expression. “Bike, if you will.”

“I won’t,” Stan says.

“I would,” Beverly says.

Eddie says nothing, so Richie leans into the space above his face to make upside-down eye contact. He tries to put his arm over his face again, but Richie catches his wrist in his hand. 

“Quit sulking,” he says. When Eddie turns his head to look at the T.V, Richie palms his cheek and turns his face towards him once more.“Quit fuckin’ sulking, dude! This is good news. You’ll be back in time to see them.”

“I’m not  _ sulking, _ ” Eddie argues, jerking his face away from Richie’s hand. Richie drops his wrist, too, and crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his hands out of the way as he leans back against the couch again. 

“You are sulking, you’re sulking like a giant baby,” Stan says, not looking away from the T.V. “If you want to stay home for Christmas, just stay home. It’s that simple. Now stop talking over the show.”

“Far-go fuck yourself, this show sucks,” Richie shoots back, and is rewarded with a small, concealed breath of laughter from Eddie. “Eds, come on, you’ll be back for New Years, right? Good news. Apologize to Bev.”

“It’s fine,” Beverly says, sounding tired. “He’s right. It’s not that easy.”

“No, he  _ should  _ stand up to his mother more,” Stanley says, pausing the show again and turning to face them. “It’s about time that woman listened to a little bit of truth. You’ve been humouring her long enough, Eddie. She’s fucking terrible.”

It’s Richie’s turn to scowl in Stan’s direction. Just cause he’s right doesn’t mean he should say it out loud, especially when Eddie’s in a mood like he is now, huffing in aggravation and looking like someone took a dump in his Chinese food. He pulls himself upright and glares at Stanley, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands as he does so. Stan looks back challengingly. 

“Thanks for sharing your opinion, Stanley,” Eddie says acidly, after their face-off. “But I don’t remember asking.”

“Oh my goodness, Eddie,” Stan announces unironically, rolling his eyes heavenward. “I’m sorry I’m not coming to Derry with you for Thanksgiving, alright? But whether I’m there or not she’s going to make you miserable and anxious, just like she always does, just like she will at Christmas, too. My _opinion_ is that my friends shouldn’t subjet themselves to acute unhappiness. Sue me for caring.”

The thunderous look on Eddie’s face softens with guilt as Richie looks between the two of them, caught off guard by the additional context of their conversation. He hadn’t known that Stan had bailed on their Thanksgiving plans. 

“Why aren’t you going to Derry?” Richie asks.

“He’s going on some field trip to look at birds in the woods upstate, instead,” Eddie says, the venom gone from his voice and replaced with remorse.

“It’s going to be a Finch winter,” Stan supplies, as if anybody knows what that means. 

“What about your parents, though?”

Stan shrugs. “They don’t care. I was mostly going for Eddie, but he said he wouldn’t mind if I went birding instead.” He looks at Eddie pointedly as he says it, and Richie feels his friend physically deflate in the space next to him. 

“I’m sorry for bein’ mean, Bev,” Eddie says finally.

“Forgiven. But I still think you should ditch your mom.”

“I also want you to stay here for Christmas, and think it’s stupid to martyr yourself for a woman who has always treated you like shit,” Richie says, throwing his opinion in with the lot for posterities sake. If the peer pressure is going to work, it’s best to have as many peers as possible aligned on the right side of the pressure. Eddie shoots him a peeved look, but it’s lackluster. The problem is that Eddie knows they’re right, and they all know that Eddie knows, and Eddie knows that they know he knows, and he’s embarrassed about it. But they all know that Beverly is right, too, and it’s not quite as easy as Stan wants it to be. The argument isn’t really just about their Christmas plans, after all.

Eddie’s mom has always had absolute power over him, and by proxy the rest of them, too. The dread of her has seeped into all his friends throughout a shared lifetime of hiding the truth from her at every turn. She’s like like a childhood ghoul that continues to haunts them, and while Eddie has been able to stop some facets of her abuse by simply putting a firm foot down, like the unnecessary medications and doctors visits, her hold over his life has persevered and evolved even since he left his home state. There always seems to be some new tactic of emotional manipulation she’s willing to try in order to get him to concede, and the force of the Losers’ hatred feels barely strong enough to hold her at bay. Eddie stares sadly into his hands, now, and Richie thinks about him heading into Derry all by himself, powerless against her needling and without any friends as means of reprieve. 

“Sorry for snapping at you,” Eddie mutters to Stan, who shrugs again. 

“It’s fine. Sorry for calling you chickenshit, I guess.”

They resume the episode in silence, and Eddie resigns himself to eating cold lo mein. After watching him frown loudly over a few bites Richie takes the plate, shaking his head, and stands to put it in the microwave. He hands it back two minutes later and Eddie accepts it sheepishly, a pink flush spread over his freckled nose. 

“Thanks.”

“Sure thing, Spagheddio.”

Eddie snorts, and Richie feels the rush of accomplishment. If he thought it were a plausible plan he’d offer to accompany Eddie to Derry himself - he could offer up his parents house in their absence, but he knows that would probably cause more problems than solutions, given dear Mrs. Kaspbrak’s desire for complete control. He’d then have to stay at Went and Maggie’s place by himself, which is a terrifying idea given that all houses built before the 90’s are absolutely haunted, theirs included. 

When Beverly taps out an hour later, and Eddie quickly volunteers to walk her home. Richie feels a spark of regret, wishing Eddie would stay for just a little longer - like a child at the end of a playdate. But it’s clear that Eddie’s trying to make up for his shitty attitude earlier, so Richie bids them both farewell with hugs, promising to see them both soon, and locks the door behind them. Stan begins collecting the dishes and garbage from the living room table, giving off an unreadable aura. 

“So…” Richie begins, and sees Stan’s eyebrows raise even though his gaze is still fixed on the pile of Eddie’s napkins he is slowly piling together. 

“So what?”

Richie studies him briefly, then leans against the end of the couch in a play of easy-going thoughtfulness. “Are you and Bev hooking up?”

Stan straightens up, a stack of dishes in his hands, and meets Richie’s eyes at long last with a look of utter incredulity. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Richie lifts one shoulder in a perfunctory shrug. “Secret whispers in the bedroom, shared glances, super weird attitude.”

For a second Stan continues looking at him as though he’s suggested they attempt an Ocean’s 11 Style heist, then closes his eyes gently and tips his head back towards the ceiling with an exhale. 

“Richie.”

“Yes, Stanaroni?”

“I am not hooking up with Bev.”

“Well, don’t sound so shocked, I mean, you two did date, it’s not out of the league of possibility.”

Stan opens his eyes and levels Richie with a withering look, to which Richie responds with put-upon innocence. “We went on  _ one  _ date in  _ middle school, _ and Bill almost skinned me alive for it. We are absolutely not hooking up. Beverly and I are not romantically compatible. Now I’m going to do the dishes.”

Richie watches him walk away with a feeling almost like waiting. He waits until he hears the sound of water running and pulls out his phone. 

**9:02 p.m, rich:** well they rnt hooking up

**9:02 p.m, eduardo:** Who? 

**9:03 p.m, rich:** bev and stan

**9:03 p.m, eduardo:** oh jesus

**9:03 p.m, eduardo:** i wasn’t SERIOUS

**9:03 p.m, eduardo:** of fucking course they arent can u fuckin imagine. she’d eat him alive. 

**9:03 p.m, rich:** ;)

**9:04 p.m, eduardo:** literally gross i don’t want to think about it

**9:04 p.m, rich:** I kind of do

**9:04 p.m, eduardo:** your obsession with stan’s dick is actually so deranged 

**9:04 p.m, rich:** the tragically straight

**9:04 p.m, eduardo:** sometimes i genuinely can’t tell if you want to have his babies or not

**9:05 p.m, rich:** definitely not. wouldn’t give up my girlish figure for anyones spawn

**9:05 p.m, eduardo:** okay well thats disturbing and I’m at the subway now

**9:05 p.m, eduardo:** have fun imagining bev and stan’s imaginary sex life <3

**9:05 p.m, rich:** that’s not what i’m doing

**9:05 p.m, rich:** text me when you get home

Stan finishes the dishes and comes back out to the living room with a book, turning off all the lamps except the one next to his chair. Richie sits in the dim room for a couple more minutes, fiddling on his phone and contemplating an episode or two of  _ The Good Place _ . In the end he decides to give in to his pathetic normie body clock and go to bed. 

He stops to ruffle Stan’s curls on his way by. Stan tips his head up slightly, content. 

“Goodnight, Stanielle.”

“See you in the morning, Rich.”

“Don’t stay up too late.”

“Leave me alone.”

He hears Stan go to bed a short while later, after listening to him pad quietly through the apartment turning off all the lights and double checking the locks. After the sound of Stan’s door clicking shut, Richie’s phone vibrates on his bedside table. 

**9:43 p.m, eduardo:** Home now

**9:43 p.m, rich:** im in bed

**9:44 p.m, eduardo:** Goodnight! Sleep tight

As he’s typing out a goodnight to Eddie, his phone vibrates again. 

**9:44 p.m, bev:** Did you seriously ask Stan if we were HOOKING UP? 

Richie groans and reaches above him to give the wall between his and Stan’s room a solid  _ thump.  _

“YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO TELL HER, STAN.”

He can hear the smile in Stan’s voice when he calls back. 

“Goodnight dipshit!”

Richie sighs and tosses his phone back on the bedside table. A moment later he picks it up again to finish saying goodnight to Eddie. 


End file.
